..  — — 

MY 

OUNTRY'S 
PART 

By  Mary  Synon 

^;r  _         A   >*s     >-//^  A^ 


ttHt^f 

57 


MY    COUNTRY'S    PART 


MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 


BY 

MARY  SYNON 


ILLUSTRATED 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

CHICAGO  NEW   YORK  SAN   FRANCISCO 


COPYRIGHT.  1918.  BT 
CHARLES  SCBIBNBR'S  SONS 


TO 

THOMAS   S.    ENRIGHT 

JAMES   B.    GRESHAM 

MARLE   B.    HAY 

PRIVATES   IN   THE    RANKS   OP 

THE    AMERICAN    EXPEDITIONARY    FORCES 

WHO    WERE    THE    FIRST    TO    DIE    IN    FRANCE 

IN  OUR  WAR  AGAINST  GERMANY 

THIS  BOOK 
IS    DEDICATED 


2223980 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    "My  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  ...  1 

II.    THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR  40 

III.  WHAT  THE  GREAT  WAR  REALLY  MEANS    .  53 

IV.  How    THE    WAR    CAME    TO    THE    UNITED 

STATES 65 

V.    How  THE  UNITED  STATES  WENT  INTO  WAR  77 

VI.    WHAT    THE   UNITED    STATES  Is  DOING   IN 

THE  WAR 85 

VII.    REAR-LINE  TRENCHES 93 

VIII.    THE  AMERICAN'S  PART 110 

IX.    THE     UNITED     STATES     AND     INDIVIDUAL 

FREEDOM 121 

X.    THE  UNITED   STATES  AND   INTERNATIONAL 

PEACE  .  131 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

General  Pershing's  veterans  direct  from  the  trenches  in 
France  marching  to  the  City  Hall,  New  York  City 

Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Belgium  refugees  between  Malines  and  Brussels      ...  66 

President  Wilson  delivering  his  war  message      ....  80 

Recruits  of  the  National  Army  waiting  at  the  booths  of  a 

National  Army  cantonment 90 

Children  selling  thrift  stamps 104 

Boys  at  work  in  their  war  garden 110 

The  launching  of  the  U.  S.  S.  Accoma 118 

An  immigrant  family  qualified  to  enter  the  United  States  128 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF" 

WHAT  can  an  American  boy  or  an  American 
girl  do  for  our  country? 

The  ways  are  many.  Every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  United  States  has  the  duty  of 
defending  the  nation.  In  time  of  war  every 
American  must  be  in  spirit,  if  he  cannot  be  in 
actual  duty,  a  soldier.  A  soldier's  part  is  to 
guard  his  nation.  An  American's  part  is  to 
guard  America.  The  guarding  may  be  done 
by  saving  the  food  that  the  government  asks 
its  citizens  to  save,  by  buying  War  Thrift 
Stamps,  by  buying  Liberty  Bonds,  by  working 
for  the  Red  Cross,  or  for  other  patriotic  organ- 
izations; but  it  must  be  done  with  the  idea  that 
our  country  is  our  first  concern,  our  first  care. 

Every  American  must  be  watchful  for  his 
country's  welfare.  How  may  he  do  this  duty? 
By  remembering  always  that  he  is,  first  of  all, 


3  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

an  American.  No  matter  what  country  his 
father  or  mother,  or  grandfather  or  grandmother 
came  from,  he  is  American,  with  the  rights  and 
privileges  and  obligations  of  his  citizenship. 
And  he  must  have  no  divided  allegiance. 

The  story  of  what  one  American  boy  could 
do  for  his  country  is  told  in  the  story  that 
follows.  Some  people  call  this  a  fiction  story. 
But  the  root  of  it  is  truth.  For  every  boy  and 
every  girl  in  the  United  States  can  hold  to  the 
love  of  country  that  John  Sutton's  grandmother 
put  into  his  soul  through  the  incidents  that 
make  up  the  tale  of 

"My  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF" 

My  grandmother  was  at  the  basement  win- 
dow, peering  into  the  street  as  if  she  were 
watching  for  some  one,  when  I  came  home  from 
school.  "Is  that  you,  John?"  she  asked  me 
as  I  stood  in  the  hall  stamping  the  snow  from 
my  boots.  "Sure!"  I  called  to  her.  "Who'd 
you  think  I  was?  A  spirit?" 

She  laughed  a  little  as  I  went  into  the  room 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  3 

and  flung  down  my  books.  My  grandmother 
hasn't  seen  any  one  in  ten  years,  though  she 
sits  day  after  day  looking  out  on  the  street  as 
if  a  parade  were  passing;  but  she  knows  the 
thump  of  my  books  on  the  table  as  well  as  she 
knows  the  turning  of  my  father's  key  in  the 
lock  of  the  door.  "Tis  a  lively  spirit  you'd 
make,  Shauneen,"  she  said,  with  that  chuckle 
she  saves  for  me.  "No,  'twas  your  father  I 
thought  was  coming." 

"What'd  he  be  doing  home  at  this  time?" 

"These  are  queer  days,"  she  said,  "and 
there  are  queer  doings  in  them." 

"There's  nothing  queer  that  I  can  see,"  I 
told  her. 

"I'm  an  old,  blind  woman,"  she  said,  "but 
sometimes  I  see  more  than  do  they  who  have 
the  sight  of  their  two  eyes."  She  said  it  so 
solemnly,  folding  her  hands  one  over  the  other 
as  she  drew  herself  up  in  her  chair,  that  I  felt 
a  little  thrill  creeping  up  my  spine.  "What  do 
you  mean?"  I  asked  her.  "Time'll  tell  you," 
she  said. 


4  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

My  mother  came  in  from  the  kitchen  then. 
"Norah  forgot  to  order  bacon  for  the  morning," 
she  said.  "Will  you  go  to  the  market,  John, 
before  you  do  anything  else?" 

"Oh,  I'm  going  skating,"  I  protested. 

"It  won't  take  you  five  minutes,"  said  my 
mother.  She  seemed  tired  and  worried.  The 
look  in  her  eyes  made  me  feel  that  there  was 
trouble  hanging  over  the  house.  My  mother 
isn't  like  my  grandmother.  When  things  go 
wrong,  my  grandmother  stands  up  straight, 
and  throws  back  her  shoulders,  and  fronts  ahead 
as  if  she  were  a  general  giving  orders  for  at- 
tack; but  my  mother  wilts  like  a  hurt  flower. 
She  was  drooping  then  while  she  stood  in  the 
room,  so  I  said,  "All  right,  I'll  go,"  though 
I'd  promised  the  fellows  to  come  to  the  park 
before  four  o'clock. 

"And  look  in  at  the  shop  as  you  go  by," 
my  grandmother  said,  "and  see  if  your  father's 
there  now." 

"Why  shouldn't  he  be?"  my  mother  asked. 

There  was  a  queer  sound  in  her  voice  that 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  5 

urged  me  around  past  my  father's  shop.  My 
father  was  there  in  the  little  office,  going  over 
blue-prints  with  Joe  Krebs's  uncle  and  Mattie 
Kleiner's  father  and  a  big  man  I'd  never  seen 
before.  I  told  my  grandmother  when  I  went 
home.  "I  knew  it,"  she  said.  "I  knew  it. 
And  I  dreamed  last  night  of  my  cousin  Michael 
who  died  trying  to  escape  from  Van  Diemen's 
Land." 

:'You  knew  what?"  I  asked  her,  for  again 
that  strange  way  of  hers  sent  shivery  cold  over 
me. 

"Go  to  your  skating,"  she  bade  me. 

There  wasn't  much  skating  at  Tompkins 
Square,  though,  when  I  found  the  crowd.  The 
sun  had  come  out  strong  in  the  afternoon  and 
the  ice  was  melting.  "Ground-hog  must  have 
seen  his  shadow  last  week,"  Bennie  Curtis  said. 
All  the  fellows — Joe  Carey  and  Jim  Dean  and 
Frank  Belden  and  Joe  Krebs  and  Mattie  Kleiner 
and  Fred  Wendell  and  the  rest  of  them — had 
taken  off  their  skates  and  were  starting  a  tug 


6  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

of  war  in  the  slush.  Mattie  Kleiner  was  the 
captain  on  one  side  and  Frank  Belden  the  cap- 
tain on  the  other.  Mattie  had  chosen  Joe 
Krebs  and  Jim  Dean  and  Joe  Carey  on  his  side. 
Just  as  I  came  along  he  shouted  that  he  chose 
me.  Frank  Belden  yelled  that  it  was  his  choice 
and  that  he'd  take  me.  "He  don't  want  to  be 
on  your  side!"  Mattie  cried.  "He's  with  the 
Germans !" 

"Well,  I  guess  not,"  I  said,  "any  more  than 
I'm  with  the  English.  I'm  an  American." 

"You  can't  be  just  an  American  in  this 
battle,"  Frank  Belden  said. 

"Then  I'll  stay  out  of  it,"  I  told  him. 

They  all  started  to  yell  "Neutral!"  and 
"Fraid  cat!"  and  "Oh,  you  dove  of  peace!" 
at  me.  I  got  tired  of  it  after  a  while,  and  I 
went  after  Mattie  hard.  When  I'd  finished 
with  him  he  bawled  at  me:  "Wait  till  your 
father  knows,  he'll  fix  you !" 

"What  for?"  I  jeered. 

"For  going  against  his  principles,  that's 
what,"  Mattie  Kleiner  roared. 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  7 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  you  know  about 
my  father's  principles."  I  laughed  at  him. 

"Well,  I  ought  to  know,"  he  cried.  "I 
heard  him  take  the  oath." 

"What  oath?"  we  all  demanded,  but  Mattie 
went  off  in  surly  silence.  Joe  Krebs  and  Joe 
Carey  trailed  after  him.  I  stayed  with  the 
other  fellows  until  it  was  dark.  Then  I  started 
for  home. 

Joe  Carey  was  waiting  for  me  at  the  corner. 
"Do  you  believe  him,  John?"  he  asked  me. 
"Do  you  believe  Mattie  about  the  oath?" 

"How's  that?"  I  parried.  I  seemed  to 
remember  having  heard  a  man  who'd  been  at 
the  house  a  fortnight  before  whispering  some- 
thing about  an  oath,  and  I  knew  that  I'd  heard 
my  mother  say  to  my  grandmother:  "I  pray 
to  God  he'll  get  in  no  trouble  with  any  oaths  or 
promises."  I  kept  wondering  if  Mattie  Kleiner's 
father  and  Joe  Krebs's  uncle  and  the  big  man 
with  the  blue-prints  who'd  been  in  my  father's 
shop  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  "Oh,  Mattie's 
talking  in  his  sleep,"  I  said. 


8  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

"Well,  maybe,"  said  Joe  Carey;  "but 
he  wasn't  sleeping  the  night  they  had  the 
meeting  in  his  house.  He  was  on  the  stairs 
going  up  to  the  top  floor,  and  he  kept  the 
door  open  a  little  way  and  he  heard  every- 
thing they  said,  and  nobody  at  all  knew  he 
was  there." 

Joe  Carey's  eyes  were  almost  popping  out 
of  his  head,  and  so  I  knew  that  Mattie  had  been 
telling  him  a  long  story.  "I  guess  he  didn't 
hear  very  much,"  I  said. 

"You  bet  he  did,"  Joe  declared.  "He  heard 
them  reading  the  letters  telling  people  not  to 
go  on  the  ships  because  they  were  going  to  be 
sunk,  and  he  heard  them  talking  about  bombs 
and  munition  factories.  He  says  that  he  heard 
your  father  say  that  he'd  gladly  lay  down  his 
life  for  the  sake  of  Ireland." 

"But  Ireland's  not  in  this  war!" 

"Sure  it  is!  Mattie  says  the  Germans  are 
going  to  free  Ireland  if  they  beat  England. 
That's  why  the  Irish  ought  to  be  with  the 
Germans.  Mattie  says  your  father'll  be  awful 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  9 

ashamed  that  you  wouldn't  go  on  his  side. 
Mattie  says  your  father— 

"I  don't  give  a  whoop  what  Mattie  says 
about  my  father,"  I  told  him.  "I  guess  I  can 
take  my  own  part." 

"I  guess  you'll  have  to,"  said  Joe. 

As  I  went  up  the  street  toward  our  house 
I  had  that  queer  feeling  that  comes  sometimes 
after  I've  been  away  for  a  while,  a  fear  that 
something  terrible  has  happened  while  I've 
been  gone  and  that  I'll  be  blamed  for  it.  It 
was  dark  on  the  street,  for  people  hadn't  lighted 
the  lamps  in  the  basement  dining-rooms,  and 
I  was  hurrying  along  when  suddenly  a  man's 
voice  came  over  my  shoulder.  I  hadn't  heard 
his  step  behind  me  at  all,  and  I  jumped  when 
he  spoke.  "Where  does  Mr.  John  Sutton  live  ? " 
he  asked  me. 

"Right  there."     I  pointed  to  our  house. 

"Do  you  know  him?"  he  asked.  Through 
the  dark  I  could  see  that  he  was  a  tall  man  with 
sharp  eyes.  I  knew  that  I  had  never  seen  him 
before,  and  that  he  didn't  look  like  any  of  the 


10  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

men  who  came  to  my  father's  machine-shop. 
"Don't  you  know  Mr.  Sutton?"  he  repeated. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Know  him  well,  sonny?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"How  well?" 

"He's  my  father." 

He  whistled  softly,  then  laughed,  turned 
on  his  heel,  and  strode  down  the  street.  I 
watched  him  to  see  if  he'd  take  the  turn  toward 
the  shop,  but  he  turned  the  other  way  at  the 
corner.  I  thought  that  I'd  tell  my  grandmother 
about  him  but  my  mother  was  with  her  in  the 
dark  when  I  went  in.  They  were  talking  very 
low,  as  if  some  one  were  dead  in  the  house, 
but  I  heard  my  mother  say,  "If  I  only  knew 
how  far  he's  gone  in  this  !"  and  my  grandmother 
mutter:  "Sure,  the  farther  he  goes  in,  the 
farther  back  he'll  have  to  come."  I  stumbled 
over  a  chair  as  I  went  into  the  room  with  them, 
and  they  both  stopped  talking. 

I  could  hear  the  little  hissing  whisper  my 
grandmother  always  makes  while  she  says  the 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  11 

rosary,  but  I  could  hear  no  sound  from  my 
mother  at  all  until  she  rose  with  a  sigh  and 
lighted  the  gas-lamp.  She  looked  at  me  as  if 
she  hadn't  known  I'd  been  there.  "Have  you 
any  home  work  to  do  to-night,  John?"  she 
asked  me. 

"No,  ma'am,"  I  said.     "It's  Friday." 

"Then  I  want  you  to  come  to  church  with 
me  after  your  dinner,"  she  said. 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  to  go  to  church,"  I'd 
said  before  my  grandmother  spoke. 

"Twill  be  a  queer  thing  to  me  as  long  as 
I  live,"  she  said,  "that  those  who  have  don't 
want  what  they  have,  and  that  those  who 
haven't  keep  wanting." 

The  telephone-bell  rang  just  then  up  in  the 
room  that  my  father  used  for  an  office,  and  I 
raced  up  to  answer  it.  A  man's  voice,  younger 
than  that  of  the  man  who'd  spoken  to  me,  came 
over  the  wire.  "Say,  is  this  John  Sutton's 
residence?"  it  asked.  "And  is  he  home?  And, 
if  he  isn't,  who  are  you?" 

"What  do  you  want?"  I  called. 


12  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

"Information.  This  is  The  World.  We  hear 
that  there's  to  be  a  meeting  of  the  clans  to-night, 
and  we  want  to  know  where  it's  to  be  held." 

"I  don't  know,"  I  said. 

"Can  you  find  out?" 

"No,"  I  lied.     "There's  nobody  home." 

"Won't  your  father  be  home  for  dinner?" 

Even  then  I  could  hear  his  key  turning  in 
the  lock,  could  hear  him  passing  on  his  way 
up  to  his  bedroom,  but  a  queer  kind  of  caution 
was  being  born  in  me.  "No,  sir,"  I  said. 

"Who  was  that?"  my  grandmother  asked 
me  when  I  went  down. 

I  told  her  of  the  call,  told  her,  too,  of  the 
man  who  had  stopped  me  on  the  street.  Her 
rosary  slipped  through  her  fingers.  "I  feared 
it,"  she  said.  Then  the  whisper  of  her  praying 
began  again. 

At  dinner  my  father  was  strangely  silent. 
Usually  he  talks  a  great  deal,  all  about  politics, 
and  the  newspapers,  and  the  trouble  with  the 
schools,  and  woman  suffrage,  and  war.  But 
he  said  nothing  at  all  except  to  ask  me  if  the 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  13 

skating  were  good.  My  mother  was  just  as 
quiet  as  he,  and  I  would  have  been  afraid  to 
open  my  mouth  if  my  grandmother  hadn't 
started  in  to  tell  about  New  York  in  the  days 
she'd  come  here,  more  than  sixty-five  years 
ago.  She  talked  and  talked  about  how  dif- 
ferent everything  had  been  then,  with  no  tall 
buildings  and  no  big  bridges  and  no  subways 
and  no  elevateds.  "Faith,  you  can  be  proud  of 
your  native  town,  John,"  she  said  to  my  father. 

"I  wish  I'd  been  born  in  Ireland,"  he  said. 

She  laughed.  "And  if  I'd  stayed  in  Ireland 
I'd  have  starved,"  she  said,  "and  little  chance 
you'd  have  had  of  being  born  anywhere." 

"It  might  have  been  just  as  well,"  he  said 
bitterly. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said;   "there's  Shauneen." 

He  rose  from  the  table,  flinging  down  his 
napkin.  "I  won't  be  home  till  very  late,"  he 
said  to  my  mother. 

She  stood  up  beside  him.  "Do  you  have 
to  go,  John?"  she  asked  him. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 


14  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

"Oh,  John,"  she  said,  "I'm  afraid." 

"Of  what?" 

"Of  what  may  happen  you." 

"Nothing'll  happen  me,"  he  said. 

I  wanted  to  tell  him  of  the  strange  man 
who  had  halted  me  on  the  street,  and  of  the 
telephone  call,  but  my  father's  anger  was  rising 
and  I  feared  to  fan  it  to  flame.  My  grand- 
mother said  nothing  until  after  my  father  had 
gone.  Then  she  spoke  to  my  mother. 

"Don't  you  know  better,"  she  asked  her, 
"and  you  eighteen  years  married  to  him,  than 
to  ask  John  not  to  do  something  you  don't 
want  him  to  do?" 

My  mother  began  to  cry  as  we  heard  the 
banging  of  the  door  after  my  father.  "Well, 
if  you  can  do  nothing  else,"  my  grandmother 
said,  "you'd  better  be  off  to  church.  Keep 
your  eyes  open,  Shauneen,"  she  warned  me 
while  my  mother  was  getting  her  hat  and  coat. 

It  was  a  grand  night,  with  the  evening  star 
low  in  the  sky,  like  a  lamp,  and  the  big  yellow 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          15 

moon  just  rising  in  the  east.  The  wind  blew 
sharp  and  salt  off  the  water,  but  there  was  a 
promise  of  spring  in  the  air,  saying  that  it  must 
be  almost  baseball  time.  We  went  over  to  the 
Jesuit  church,  walking  slowly  all  the  way. 
There  we  knelt  in  the  dark  until  I  was  stiff. 
As  we  came  out  my  mother  stopped  at  the  holy- 
water  font.  "John,"  she  said,  "will  you  promise 
me  that  if  you  ever  marry  you'll  never  set  any 
cause  but  God's  above  your  wife?" 

"No,  ma'am,  I  won't,"  I  said,  vaguely  un- 
derstanding that  my  father  had  hurt  my  mother 
by  his  refusal  to  stay  at  home,  and  wondering 
what  cause  he  had  set  above  her.  As  we  walked 
toward  the  car-line  I  remembered  what  Joe 
Carey  had  told  me  of  Mattie  Kleiner's  speech 
about  my  father.  "Do  you  have  to  go  to  Ireland 
to  die  for  Ireland?"  I  asked  her.  She  clutched 
my  hand.  "My  grandfather  died  for  Ireland," 
she  said,  "and  he  wasn't  the  first  of  his  line  to 
die  for  her.  But  I  pray  God  that  he  may  have 
been  the  last."  She  said  no  more  till  we  came 
into  our  own  house. 


16  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

My  grandmother  was  still  at  the  window 
of  the  dining-room.  There  was  no  light,  and 
my  mother  did  not  make  one.  'There  was 
another  telephone  call,"  my  grandmother  said. 
"Norah  answered  it.  'Twas  the  newspaper 
calling  again  for  John  to  ask  about  the  meeting. 
She  said  she  knew  nothing  about  it  and  that 
no  one  was  here  to  answer." 

"Do  you  suppose,"  I  said,  "it  was  detec- 
tives ?  " 

They  said  nothing,  and  I  could  feel  a  big 
lump  coming  up  my  throat.  I  thought  they 
might  not  have  heard  me  until  my  grandmother 
said:  "Do  you  know,  Kate,  where  the  meeting 
is?" 

"I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  want  to  know," 
my  mother  cried.  She  turned  to  me  sharply. 
"Go  to  bed,  John,"  she  said. 

"I  know  where  the  meetings  are,"  I  blurted 
out,  eager  enough  for  any  excuse  to  put  off 
the  hateful  order.  'They're  at  Mattie  Kleiner's 
house,  because  he  hides  on  the  stairs  when  they 
come,  and  he  heard  them  take  the  oath." 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          17 

"Is  that  Matthew  Kleiner's  boy?"  my 
grandmother  asked,  so  quietly  that  I  thought 
she  had  not  realized  the  importance  of  my 
news. 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

"Go  to  bed,  Shauneen."  She  repeated  my 
mother's  order. 

I  went  up-stairs,  leaving  the  two  of  them 
silent  in  the  dark.  I  whistled  while  I  undressed, 
but  I  shivered  after  I  had  turned  out  the  light 
and  jumped  between  the  sheets.  I  was  going 
to  lie  awake  waiting  for  my  father's  return, 
but  I  must  have  dozed,  for  I  thought  that  it 
was  in  the  middle  of  the  night  that  something 
woke  me.  I  knew,  as  soon  as  I  woke,  that  some 
one  was  in  my  room.  I  could  feel  him  groping. 
I  tried  to  speak,  but  my  tongue  stuck  to  the 
roof  of  my  mouth.  Then  I  heard  a  faint 
whisper.  "Shauneen,"  it  said. 

So  far  away  it  seemed  that  I  thought  it 
might  be  a  ghost  until  my  grandmother  spoke 
again.  :*Your  mother's  in  bed  now,"  she  said. 
"Put  on  your  clothes  as  quick  as  you  can." 


18  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

"What  is  it?"  I  whispered. 

"We're  going  to  Matthew  Kleiner's,  you 
and  I,"  she  said.  "I'd  go  alone  if  I  could  see." 

"What  time  is  it?" 

"Between  ten  and  eleven." 

I  pulled  my  clothes  on  as  fast  as  I  could. 
Then  stealthily  as  thieves  we  crept  out  from 
my  room  and  down  the  stairs.  I  held  my  grand- 
mother's hand  and  wondered  at  its  steadiness. 
When  we  had  come  outside  the  basement  door 
she  halted  me.  "Look  down  the  street  for  the 
tall  man,"  she  bade  me.  There  was  no  one  in 
sight,  however,  and  we  walked  along  sturdily, 
turning  corners  until  we  came  to  Kleiner's. 

It  was  a  red-brick  house  in  a  row,  not  a 
basement  house  like  ours,  but  with  a  cellar 
below  and  an  attic  above  its  two  main  floors. 
There  was  no  light  on  the  first  floor,  but 
I  thought  that  I  saw  a  stream  behind  the  drawn 
curtains  up-stairs.  I  found  the  bell  and  pushed 
on  it  hard.  No  one  came  for  a  long  time.  I 
rang  again.  I  could  see  shadows  back  of  the 
shades  before  Mattie  Kleiner's  mother  came. 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          19 

"What  is  it?"  she  demanded  before  she  opened 
the  door. 

"Tell  her  that  your  mother's  sick  and  that 
you've  come  for  your  father,"  my  grandmother 
ordered  me.  I  repeated  what  she'd  said.  Mrs. 
Kleiner  opened  the  door.  "Oh,"  she  cried,  "it 
is  Mrs.  Sutton  and  little  John.  Oh,  you  did 
frighten  me.  Is  the  mother  very  sick?  I  shall 
call  the  father." 

"Let  me  go  to  him,"  my  grandmother  said. 
We  were  inside  the  hall  then,  and  I  put  her 
hand  on  the  railing  of  the  stairway.  She  had 
started  up  before  Mrs.  Kleiner  tried  to  stop 
her.  "I've  a  message  for  him,"  said  my  grand- 
mother. Mrs.  Kleiner  and  I  followed  her.  At 
the  top  of  the  stairs  I  turned  her  toward  the 
front  room,  for  I  could  hear  the  murmur  of 
voices.  I  passed  a  door  and  wondered  if  Mattie 
Kleiner  were  hiding  behind  it.  "Oh,  we  must 
not  go  in,"  Mrs.  Kleiner  pleaded.  "The  men 
will  not  want  us  to  go  in."  She  tried  to  stop 
us,  but  my  grandmother  turned,  looking  at 
her  as  if  she  could  see  her.  "I've  always  fol- 


20  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

lowed  my  own  conscience,  ma'am,"   she  said, 
"not  my  husband's,  nor  my  son's,  nor  any  other 


man's." 


From  within  the  front  room  came  the  sound 
of  the  voices,  growing  louder  and  louder  as  we 
stood  there,  my  grandmother  alert,  Mrs.  Kleiner 
appalled,  I  myself  athrill.  I  could  hear  my 
father's  voice,  short,  sharp.  "It's  our  great 
opportunity,"  he  was  saying.  "We  have  only 
to  strike  the  blow  at  England's  empire,  and 
the  empire  itself  will  arise  to  aid  us.  Twenty 
thousand  men  flung  into  Canada  will  turn  the 
trick.  French  Quebec  is  disaffected.  What  if 
soldiers  are  there  ?  We  can  fight  them  !  W^e 
may  die,  but  what  if  we  do?  We  will  have 
started  the  avalanche  that  will  destroy  Car- 
thage!" 

There  were  cries  of  "Right !"  to  him.  Then 
a  man  began  to  talk  in  German.  His  voice 
rang  out  harshly.  From  the  murmurs  that 
came  out  to  us  we  knew  that  the  men  were  ap- 
plauding his  words,  but  we  had  no  idea  of  what 
the  words  were.  Mrs.  Kleiner  stood  wrringing 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          21 

her  hands.  "Who's  in  there  ? "  my  grandmother 
asked  her. 

"I  do  not  know,"  she  insisted. 

"Joe  Krebs's  uncle  is  there,"  I  said.  "I 
know  his  cough.  And  Mr.  Winngart  who  keeps 
the  delicatessen-shop.  And  Frank  Belden's 
father;  and  that's  Mr.  Carey's  voice." 

"They  just  meet  for  fun,"  groaned  Mrs. 
Kleiner. 

"Sure,  I  saw  that  kind  of  fun  before,"  said 
my  grandmother,  "when  the  Fenians  went 
after  the  Queen's  Own." 

My  father's  voice  rose  again.  "We  are 
ready  ,to  fire  the  torch  ?  We  are  ready  to  send 
out  the  word  to-night  for  the  mobilization  of 
our  sympathizers?  We  are  ready  to  stand  to- 
gether to  the  bitter  end  ?  " 

"We  are  ready !"  came  the  shout. 

Then  my  grandmother  opened  the  door. 

Through  the  haze  of  their  tobacco  smoke 
they  looked  up,  the  dozen  men  crowded  into 
the  Kleiners'  front  bedroom,  to  see  my  grand- 
mother standing  before  them,  a  bent  old  woman 


22  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

in  her  black  dress  and  shawl,  her  little  jet  bonnet 
nodding  valiantly  from  its  perch  on  her  thin 
white  hair.  She  looked  around  as  if  she  could 
see  every  one  of  them.  My  father  had  sprung 
forward  at  her  coming,  and,  as  if  to  hold  him 
off,  she  put  up  one  hand. 

"Is  it  yourself,  John  Sutton,  who's  talking 
here  of  plots,  and  plans,  and  war?"  she  said. 
Her  voice  went  up  to  a  sharp  edge.  She  flung 
back  her  head  as  if  she  defied  them  to  answer 
her.  All  of  them,  my  father  and  Joe  Krebs's 
uncle  and  Mattie  Kleiner's  father  and  Mr. 
Carey  and  Mr.  Winngart  and  the  big  man  who'd 
had  the  blue-prints  in  the  shop,  and  the  others, 
stared  at  her  as  if  she  were  a  ghost.  No 
one  of  them  moved  as  she  spoke.  'Tis  a  fine 
lot  you  are  to  be  sitting  here  thinking  ways  to 
bring  trouble  on  yourselves,  and  your  wives, 
and  your  children,  and  your  country.  Who 
are  there  here  of  you  ?  Is  it  yourself,  Benedict 
Krebs,  who's  going  out  to  fight  for  Germany 
when  your  own  father  came  to  this  very  street 
to  get  away  from  Prussia  ?  Is  it  you,  Matthew 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          23 

Kleiner,  who  gives  roof  to  them  who  plot  against 
America,  you,  who  came  here  to  earn  a  living 
that  you  couldn't  earn  at  home?  Is  it  you, 
Michael  Carey,  who's  helping  them  hurt  the 
land  that's  making  you  a  rich  man  ?  Shame  on 
you;  shame  on  you  all !" 

"Why  shouldn't  we  fight  England?"  Joe 
Carey's  father  said  with  a  growl.  "You'd  be 
the  last  one,  Mrs.  Button,  that  I'd  think'd  set 
yourself  against  that." 

"Tis  not  England,"  said  my  grandmother, 
"that  you  fight  with  your  plots.  'Tis  America 
you  strike  when  you  strike  here.  And,  as  long 
as  you  stay  here,  be  Americans  and  not 
traitors !" 

They  began  to  murmur  at  that,  and  my 
father  said:  :<You  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about,  mother.  You'd  better  take  John 
home.  This  is  no  place  for  either  of  you." 

"No  more  than  it's  a  place  for  you,"  she 
said.  "Will  you  be  coming  home  with  me 
now?" 

"I  will  not,"  my  father  said. 


24  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

"Faith,  and  you'll  all  be  wishing  you  had," 
she  told  them,  "when  the  jails'll  be  holding 
you  in  the  morning." 

"The  jails!"  The  big  man  who  had  held 
the  blue-prints  came  closer  to  us.  "What  is 
it  you  say  of  jails?  You  have  told  the  police, 
then?" 

"I  didn't  need  to,"  my  grandmother  said. 
:'The  government  men  have  been  watching 
this  long  time.  'Twill  be  at  midnight  that 
they'll  come  here.  But  'tis  not  myself  they'll 
be  finding."  I  saw  the  men's  glances  flash 
around  the  room  through  the  smoky  haze  be- 
fore she  called:  "Come,  Shauneen."  I  took 
her  hand  again  and  led  her  out  of  the  room. 
Just  before  the  door  closed  after  us  I  saw  that 
my  father's  face  had  grown  very  white,  and 
that  Mattie  Kleiner's  father  had  dropped  his 
pipe  on  the  floor. 

Outside  the  house  I  spoke  to  my  grand- 
mother tremblingly.  "Do  the  police  really 
know?"  I  asked  her.  She  gave  her  dry  little 
chuckle.  "If  they  don't,  they  should,"  she 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          25 

answered;  "but  I  was  born  an  O'Brien,  and 
I've  never  known  one  of  them  yet  that  ever 
told  the  police  anything.  No,  Shauneen,"  she 
laughed,  "'twas  the  high  hill  I  shot  at,  but  I'm 
thinking  that  the  shot  struck.  We'll  watch." 

We  crossed  the  street  and  waited  in  the 
shadow  of  the  house  at  the  corner.  For  a  little 
while  all  was  quiet  at  Kleiner's.  Then  I  saw 
the  tall  man  come  out  with  Joe  Krebs's  uncle. 
After  a  time  my  father  came  out  with  Mr.  Winn- 
gart  and  Mr.  Carey.  They  walked  to  the  other 
corner  and  stood  there  a  moment  before  they 
separated.  "Shall  we  go  home  now?"  I  asked 
my  grandmother  after  I  had  told  her  what  I 
had  seen. 

"Not  yet,"  she  said.  "I've  one  more  errand 
to  do  this  night."  I  thought  it  might  have 
something  to  do  with  the  tall  man  who'd  spoken 
to  me  or  with  the  telephone  call,  and  I  won- 
dered when  she  sighed.  "I'm  a  very  old 
woman,"  she  seemed  to  be  saying  to  herself. 
"I'll  be  ninety-one  years  come  Michaelmas 
Day.  Some  of  the  world  I've  seen,  and  much 


26  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

of  life.  Out  of  it  all  I've  brought  but  a  few 
things.  I'd  thought  to  give  these  to  my  son. 
But—  She  paused".  "How  old  are  you, 
Shauneen  ?  "  she  asked  me. 

"Fourteen,"  I  said. 

"Old  enough,"  she  nodded.  She  turned 
her  head  as  if  she  were  looking  for  something 
or  some  one.  Then:  "Do  you  know  your  way 
to  the  Battery?"  she  asked  me. 

"Sure,"  I  told  her.    "Are  you  going  there?" 

"We  are." 

It  had  been  quiet  enough  in  our  part  of 
town.  It  was  quieter  yet  when  we  came  to 
Bowling  Green  and  walked  across  to  the  Bat- 
tery. Down  there,  past  the  high  buildings  and 
the  warehouses,  we  seemed  to  have  come  into 
the  heart  of  a  hush.  To  the  north  of  us  the 
sky  was  afire  with  the  golden  glow  from  the 
up-town  lights.  In  front  of  us  ran  the  East 
River  and  the  North  River.  Out  on  Bedloe's 
Island  I  could  see  the  shining  of  the  Goddess 
of  Liberty's  torch.  Every  little  while  a  ferry- 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          27 

boat,  all  yellow  with  lights,  would  shoot  out 
on  the  water.  A  sailing-vessel  moved  slowly 
after  its  puffing  tug.  The  little  oyster-boats 
were  coming  in  from  the  bay.  A  steamer  glided 
along  past  it  as  I  walked  with  my  grandmother 
out  toward  the  old  Castle  Garden. 

On  the  Saturday  before  Joe  Carey  and  I 
had  come  down  to  the  piers,  prowling  all  after- 
noon on  the  docks,  watching  the  men  bringing 
in  the  queer  crates  and  boxes  and  bags  while 
we  told  each  other  of  the  places  from  where 
the  fruits  and  spices  and  coffee  and  wines  had 
come.  There  were  thousands  and  thousands 
of  ships  out  there  in  the  dark,  I  knew,  and  I 
began  to  tell  my  grandmother  what  some  of 
the  sailors  had  told  us  of  how  the  trade  of  the 
world  was  crowding  into  New  York,  with  the 
ships  all  pressing  the  docks  for  room.  "If  you 
could  only  see  it!"  I  said  to  her.  "I  can  see 
more  than  that,"  she  said.  Then:  "Take  me 
to  the  edge  of  the  waters,"  she  bade  me. 

Wondering  and  a  little  frightened,  I  obeyed 
her,  trying  to  solve  the  while  the  mystery  of 


28  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

her  whim  to  bring  me  to  the  deserted  park  in 
the  middle  of  the  night.  "Is  Castle  Garden 
over  there?"  she  pointed.  :<Then  I've  my 
bearings  now." 

She  stood  alone,  a  little  way  off  from  me, 
staring  seaward  as  if  she  counted  the  shadowy 
ships.  The  wind  blew  her  thin  white  hair  from 
under  her  bonnet  and  raised  the  folds  of  her 
shawl.  There  in  the  lateness  of  the  night,  alone 
at  the  edge  of  the  Battery,  she  didn't  seem  to 
be  my  grandmother  at  all,  but  some  stranger. 
I  remembered  the  story  I'd  read  somewhere  of 
an  old  woman  who'd  brought  a  pile  of  books 
to  a  King  of  Rome,  books  that  she  threw  away, 
one  by  one,  as  he  refused  them,  until  there  was 
but  one  book  left.  When  he'd  bought  that  one 
from  her  he'd  found  that  it  was  the  book  of 
the  future  of  the  empire,  and  that  he'd  lost  all 
the  rest  through  his  folly.  As  I  looked  at  my 
grandmother  I  thought  she  must  be  like  the  old 
woman  of  the  story.  Even  her  voice  sounded 
strange  and  deep  when  she  turned  to  me. 

"It    was    sixty -five   years   ago    the    7th    of 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  29 

November  that  I  first  stood  on  this  soil,"  she 
said.  "'Tis  a  long  lifetime,  and,  thank  God, 
a  useful  one  I've  had.  Burdens  I've  had,  but 
never  did  I  lack  the  strength  to  bear  them. 
Looking  back,  I'm  sorry  for  many  a  word  and 
many  a  deed,  but  I've  never  sorrowed  that  I 
came  here.." 

I  would  have  thought  that  she  had  forgotten 
me  if  she  hadn't  touched  my  arm.  'You've 
heard  tell  of  the  famine,  Shauneen,"  she  went 
on,  "the  great  famine  that  fell  on  Ireland, 
blighting  even  the  potatoes  in  the  ground? 
We'd  a  little  place  in  Connaught  then,  a  bit 
of  land  my  father  was  tilling.  We  hadn't  much, 
even  for  the  place,  but  we  were  happy  enough, 
God  knows,  with  our  singing  and  dancing,  and 
the  fairs  and  the  patterns.  Then  little  by  little, 
we  grew  poorer  and  poorer.  I  was  the  oldest  of 
the  seven  of  us.  My  mother  and  my  self 'd  be 
planning  and  scraping  to  find  food  for  the  rest  of 
them.  Every  day  we'd  see  them  growing  thinner 
and  thinner.  Oh,  mavrone,  the  pity  of  it !  And 
thcv  looking  at  us  betimes  as  if  we  were  cheat- 


30  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

ing  them  of  their  bit  of  a  sup !  Sometimes  now 
in  the  dark  I  see  them  come  to  my  bed,  with 
their  soft  eyes  begging  for  bread,  and  we  having 
naught  to  give  them.  B rigid — she  was  the 
youngest  of  them  all — died.  Then  my  father 
went. 

"I  used  to  go  down  to  the  sea  and  hunt  the 
wrack  for  bits  of  food.  There  by  the  shore  I 
would  look  over  here  to  America  and  pray, 
day  after  day,  that  the  Lord  would  send  to  us 
some  help  before  my  mother  should  go.  You 
don't  know  what  it  is  to  pray,  Shauneen.  Your 
father  cannot  teach  you  and  your  mother  hopes 
you'll  never  learn.  For  prayer  is  born  in  agony, 
avick,  and  grief  and  loss  and  sorrow.  But  be-' 
cause  you  are  the  son  of  my  soul  I  pray  for  you 
that  life  may  teach  you  prayer.  For  when  you 
come  to  the  end  of  the  road,  Shauneen,  you'll 
know  that  'tis  not  the  smoothness  of  the  way, 
but  the  height  of  it  and  the  depth  of  it,  that 
measures  your  travelling.  Far,  far  down  in 
the  depths  I  went  when  I  prayed  over  there 
on  the  bleak  coast  of  Connaught. 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          31 

"God  answered  my  prayer.  There  came 
from  America  food  to  us.  There  came,  too, 
the  chance  for  me  to  come  here  with  the  promise 
of  work  to  do.  'Twas  a  drear  day  when  I  left 
home.  How  I  cursed  England  as  I  looked  back 
on  the  hills  of  Cork  harbor,  all  green  and  smiling 
as  if  never  a  blight  had  cast  its  shadow  behind 
them ! 

"Twas  a  long,  dreary  sailing.  Nine  weeks 
we  were  in  the  crossing.  A  lifetime  I  thought 
it  was  between  the  day  I  looked  on  the  western 
sea  from  the  Connaught  mountains  and  the 
day  when  I  stood  here  looking  back  toward 
home.  Sure  life  is  full  of  lifetimes  like  those." 

She  paused  a  moment,  but  I  felt  as  if  I  were 
under  a  spell  that  I  must  not  break  by  word 
of  mine.  A  cloud  came  over  the  moon  and  all 
around  us  grew  shadowy.  The  big  throb  that 
the  city  always  beats  at  night  kept  sounding 
like  the  thrumming  of  an  orchestra  waiting  for 
the  violin  solo  to  start. 

"I'd  plenty  of  them  before  many  years." 
My  grandmother's  voice  came  like  the  sound 


32  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

for  which  the  thrumming  had  waited.  "Did 
you  ever  think  what  it  means  to  the  poor  souls 
who  come  here  alone  for  their  living?  When 
you've  a  house  of  your  own,  Shauneen,  with 
men  servants  and  maid  servants,  don't  forget 
that  your  father's  mother  worked  out  for  some 
one.  They  were  kind  people,  too,  who  took 
me  to  their  homes.  Don't  forget  that  either. 
For  'tis  my  first  memory  of  America.  Kind 
they  were,  and  just.  They  helped  me  save 
what  I  earned  and  they  showed  me  ways  of 
helping  my  folks  at  home.  I'd  brought  out 
Danny  and  James  and  Ellen  and  Mary  before 
the  war.  I  met  each  one  of  them  right  here  at 
Castle  Garden.  That's  why  I  always  think 
of  this  place  as  the  gateway  through  which 
the  Irish  have  come  to  America.  Sure  Ellis 
Island's  been  for  the  Italians  and  the  Jews  and 
the  Greeks.  We  didn't  wait  outside  the  door. 
We  came  straight  in,"  she  chuckled. 

"My  mother  wouldn't  come  from  the  old 
place.  Long  I  grieved  over  her  there  in  the 
little  house  where  my  father  and  Brigid  had 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          33 

died,  but  after  a  while  I  knew  she  was  happier 
so.  Sometimes,  Shauneen,  I  think  of  Ireland 
as  an  old  woman,  like  my  mother,  sitting  home 
alone  in  the  old  places,  grieving,  mourning, 
with  her  children  out  over  the  world,  living  the 
dreams  of  her  nights  by  the  fire.  'Twas  here 
we  found  the  freedom  the  Irish  had  been  fight- 
ing for.  'Twas  here,  away  from  landlords  and 
landholding,  away  from  famine  and  persecution, 
that  we  found  that  life  need  not  be  a  thing  of 
sorrow.  'Twas  here  I  met  your  grandfather. 

"I'd  notjiing  of  my  own,  and  your  grand- 
father had  but  a  trifle  more  when  we  married. 
I  suppose  'tis  brave  that  people  would  call  us 
now.  We  didn't  think  that  we  were.  We  were 
young  and  strong  and  we  loved  each  other. 
And  we  were  getting  along  fairly  well — we'd 
started  the  payments  on  a  bit  of  a  house  of 
our  own  after  your  father  was  born — when 
the  war  came  down  on  us. 

'Your  grandfather  went  with  the  brigade. 
Not  twice  did  we  think  whether  or  not  he  should 
go.  We  knew  that  he  owed  his  first  duty  to 


34  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

the  country  that  had  called  him,  and  sheltered 
him,  and  given  him  work  and  hope  and  freedom. 
For  he  was  a  boy  from  home  as  I  was  a  girl 
from  home.  I  stood  on  the  curbstone  the  day 
he  marched  by,  with  your  father  in  my  arms, 
and  I  cheered  for  the  flag.  'Sure  he'll  be  walk- 
ing to  meet  you  when  you  come  back ! '  I 
called,  lifting  up  the  child.  Your  grandfather 
never  came  back.  He  fell  at  Marye's  Heights." 
When  she  spoke  again  her  voice  had  changed 
more  to  her  e very-day  tone.  "Well,  I  raised 
your  father,"  she  said,  "and  I  thought  I  was 
raising  him  well.  My  arms  were  strong.  I 
worked  at  the  wash-tub  morning,  noon,  and 
night.  It  wasn't  long  till  I  had  a  laundry  of 
my  own.  I  thought  to  give  my  son  all  that  I'd 
ever  wanted  for  myself.  Perhaps  that  was 
where  I  made  my  mistake.  I  thought  too  much 
of  the  things  that  money  can  buy  in  those  years 
when  money  was  so  hard  to  earn.  Perhaps 
'twas  myself  and  no  other  who  taught  your 
father  the  cold,  hard  things  of  life,  though, 
God  knows,  I'd  no  thought  to  do  it.  He's  a 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          35 

good  man  in  many  ways,  but  he's  not  the  man 
I  want  you  to  be.  He's  a  good  hater  but  he's 
not  a  good  lover.  And,  faith,  what's  there  in 
life  but  love?" 

I  moved  a  little  then,  and  my  grandmother 
swung  me  around,  with  her  two  hands  on  my 
shoulders,  and,  blind  as  she  is,  stared  at  me  as 
if  she  were  looking  right  down  into  my  heart. 
"Shauneen,"  she  said,  "I  have  prayed,  day 
and  night,  that  your  father  might  be  to  America 
the  good  citizen  his  father  was.  I  have  prayed 
that  if  America  should  ever  need  him  he  would 
stand  ready  for  her  call.  I  have  prayed  that 
he'd  love  America  as  I  have  loved  America. 
I  love  Ireland,  mavrone.  Always  in  my  heart 
do  I  see  her  hills  as  they  looked  on  the  morning 
I  looked  back  on  them  from  the  sea.  But  I 
love  America,  too,  and  I  wanted  my  son  to 
love  her  even  more  than  I  do.  I've  wanted 
him  to  love  this  land  as  my  fathers  and  their 
fathers  loved  Ireland.  'Twas  not  that  I  wanted 
him  to  forget  my  land;  when  he  was  a  lad  like 
you  I'd  tell  him  tales  of  Ireland's  glory  and  of 


36  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

Ireland's  woe.  How  was  I  to  know  that  all  it 
would  do  for  him  was  to  rouse  the  black  hate 
for  England  ?  I  taught  him  love  for  Ireland, 
but  never  did  I  teach  him  to  set  my  land  above 
his  own. 

"For  'twas  America  gave  us  our  chance, 
Shauneen,  when  we'd  no  other  place  on  earth 
to  seek.  Hard  days  we've  known  here,  too, 
days  when  even  the  children  jeered  at  us,  but 
we've  never  felt  the  hand  of  the  oppressor  upon 
us  since  we  touched  our  feet  on  these  shores. 
We've  been  free  and  we've  prospered.  Fine 
houses  we  have  and  fine  clothes;  and  'tis  a  long 
day  since  I  knew  the  pinch  of  hunger.  This  is 
our  debt.  Tell  me  again,  Shauneen,  what  you 
see  out  there?" 

I  told  her  of  the  shining  lights,  of  the  funnels 
of  the  steamers,  of  the  piled  piers,  of  the  little 
oyster-boats,  of  the  great  liners  waiting  the 
word  for  their  sailing. 

''Twould  be  a  fine  sight,"  she  sighed.  "Do 
you  think  me  a  madwoman  to  bring  you  here  ?" 
she  went  on,  as  if  she  had  read  my  thought. 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"          37 

"Perhaps  I  am  that.  Perhaps  I'm  not.  For 
you'll  remember  this  night  when  you've  for- 
gotten many  another  time,  just  as  I  remember 
the  day  when  my  mother  took  me  to  the  shrine 
at  Knock.  For  this  is  the  shrine  of  your  coun- 
try, Shauneen,  this  old  Castle  Garden,  where 
your  people  set  foot  in  the  land  that's  given 
them  liberty.  Here  it  was  that  I  told  my 
brothers  and  my  sisters  of  the  future  before 
them.  Here  it  is  that  I'm  telling  you  that  your 
country  will  be  the  greatest  nation  of  all  the 
world  if  only  you  lads  stay  true  to  her.  That's 
why  I've  brought  you  here  to-night,  Shauneen. 
I'm  an  old,  old  woman.  I've  not  long  for  this 
earth.  But  I've  this  message  for  you;  it's 
yours;  this  duty  that  your  father  shirks  when 
he  plots  with  black  traitors  who'd  drag  us  into 
wars  that  are  not  of  our  choosing.  Raise  your 
hand,  Shauneen.  Say  after  me:  'As  long  as  I 
live.,  God  helping  me,  I  shall  keep  my  country  first 
in  my  heart  and,  after  God,  first  in  my  soul  ! ' ' 

Through  the  misty  moonlight  there  came 
to  me  the  memory  of  my  mother's  plea  at  the 


38  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

door  of  the  church,  my  mother's  cry:  " Promise 
me  that  you'll  set  no  cause  but  God's  before 
your  wife!"  Some  battle  of  spirit  struggled 
within  me.  For  an  instant  I  was  silent.  Then, 
suddenly,  as  if  the  moon  had  ridden  above  the 
cloud,  I  saw  the  right.  "Since  all  true  causes 
come  from  God,"  I  said  to  myself,  "it  is  right 
to  set  my  own  country  above  anything  else 
that  may  ever  come."  And  I  said  the  words 
after  my  grandmother. 

She  took  my  face  between  her  hands  and 
kissed  me.  "  God  keep  you,  Shauneen,"  she  said, 
"for  the  woman  who'll  love  you,  and  the  chil- 
dren you'll  teach,  and  the  land  you'll  serve ! " 

Then  through  a  sleeping  city  my  grand- 
mother and  I  went  home. 

Our  country's  part  is  to  keep  the  flame  of 
freedom  burning  above  the  darkness  of  the 
world.  Our  part  is  to  feed  that  flame  with  the 
oil  of  our  love  of  our  country.  No  matter  what 
our  duty  may  be,  whether  it  be  great  or  small, 
let  us  do  it  as  our  country  asks;  that  we  may 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER  AND  MYSELF"  39 

keep  our  land  the  place  where  men  may  live 
in  freedom,  in  justice,  in  peace. 

We  have  come  upon  troubled  times.  We 
have  enemies  at  home  as  well  as  abroad.  We 
have  those  who  would  cry  "Peace  at  any  price," 
when  our  country  knows  that  the  only  endur- 
ing peace  is  one  which  is  won  with  honor.  We 
have  those  who  would  barter  American  ideals 
for  immediate  comfort,  those  who  would  sell 
the  future  for  the  present.  It  is  our  part,  the 
part  of  each  and  every  American,  to  stand  firm 
for  those  principles  which  America  has  cherished 
and  for  which  she  fights  to-day.  It  is  our  part 
to  be  American,  to  think  American,  to  pray 
American.  It  is  our  duty  to  remember  what 
America  does  for  us.  It  is  our  privilege  to  do 
what  we  can  for  America.  Every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  United  States,  not  in  active  war 
service  in  army  or  navy,  is  nothing  less  than  a 
licensed  pilot,  steering  the  ship  of  his  patriotism 
among  rough  waters.  It  is  his  part  to  steer  it 
straight,  and,  as  the  President  said  of  the  na- 
tion, "God  helping  him,  he  can  do  no  other." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR 

IN  the  last  days  of  April,  1918,  fifty  men 
in  the  khaki  of  the  army  of  the  United  States 
of  America  landed  at  an  Atlantic  port.  Their 
coming,  unheralded  and  almost  un welcomed, 
marked  one  of  the  most  important  events  in 
the  history  of  our  country.  For  they  were  the 
first  homecoming  veterans  of  the  American 
Expeditionary  Forces,  men  who  had  fought 
under  Pershing  on  the  soil  of  France  for  the 
principles  that  inspired  our  nation's  entrance 
into  the  world  war. 

There  was  the  man  who  had  fired  the  first 
American  gun  in  the  battles.  There  was  the 
man  who  had  stood  beside  the  first  man  killed 
in  action.  There  was  the  man  who  had  brought 
five  German  prisoners  back  into  camp  after 
the  rush  on  the  trenches.  Wounded,  disabled, 
made  unfit  for  further  immediate  service,  they 

40 


UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR      41 

had  been  sent  home;  and  they  came  back  to 
their  country,  the  advance-guard  of  the  greatest 
army  the  United  States  has  ever  assembled 
and  one  of  the  greatest  armies  the  world  has 
ever  seen,  to  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that 
America  has  actually  taken  her  place  in  the 
world  struggle. 

They  had  fought  under  German  fire.  They 
had  stood  beside  French  soldiers  and  British 
soldiers  in  the  attack.  They  had  received  their 
baptism  of  blood.  They  had  set  the  flag  of 
the  United  States  of  America  on  the  battle- 
fronts  in  the  standard  that  bears  the  flags  of 
those  nations  which  are  defending  the  rights 
of  democracy  against  the  invasion  of  autocracy. 
They  are  of  the  first  division  of  an  American 
army  to  fight  a  battle  for  America  in  the  fields 
of  Europe;  and  they  had  come  home  to  give 
testimony  of  what  America's  part  in  the  great 
war  really  is.  For  they  are  the  first  of  the  mil- 
lions of  fighters  whom  the  nation  has  gathered 
for  the  winning  of  the  war. 

Even  when  the  United  States  entered  the 


42  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

great  war  on  the  6th  of  April,  1917,  the  part 
that  we  would  take  in  the  conflict  was  not  clearly 
defined.  Would  we  send  an  army  abroad  ? 
Would  our  navy  fight?  Or  would  we  merely 
defend  our  own  shores  against  possible  attack, 
and  supply  the  other  nations  at  war  with  Ger- 
many with  food,  munitions,  and  other  supplies  ? 
The  question  was  soon  answered  by  American 
honesty  which  thundered  that  the  only  way 
to  wage  war  was  to  send  soldiers  to  the  scene  of 
battle.  Preparations  never  equalled  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  went  into  effect  for  the  pur- 
pose of  conveying  our  soldiers  over  the  ocean, 
of  supplying  them  and  equipping  them,  and  of 
standing  back  of  the  troops  and  peoples  of  the 
Allies  who  were  already  at  war  with  Germany. 
Not,  however,  until  more  than  a  year  after 
the  beginning  of  our  part  in  the  war  was  the 
issue  of  exactly  what  the  United  States  would 
do  on  the  battle-fronts  settled.  Then  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  Woodrow  Wilson, 
gave  the  order  that  General  John  Pershing,  in 
command  of  the  American  Expeditionary  Forces, 


UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR      43 

should  place  the  American  force  at  the  disposi- 
tion of  General  Foch  of  France,  commander- 
in-chief  for  the  armies  of  the  Allies.  The  Amer- 
ican Expeditionary  Forces  slipped  into  place, 
and  American  soldiers  began  the  actual  fight- 
ing of  America's  war. 

For  the  war  into  which  our  nation  has  en- 
tered is,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  is  being  fought 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  as  much 
America's  war  and  a  war  of  defense  as  if  it 
were  being  fought  along  our  own  Atlantic  sea- 
board against  an  invading  army.  It  is  being 
fought  for  the  same  principles  which  are  the 
only  ones  great  enough  to  force  our  country 
to  war,  principles  of  freedom  for  the  individual, 
freedom  for  the  free-governed  nations,  and  of 
ultimate,  lasting  peace  for  the  world.  It  is 
being  fought  against  the  forces  of  aggression, 
of  greed,  of  injustice.  It  is  being  fought  against 
the  intention  of  Germany  to  dominate  the 
world. 

In  every  war  there  are  two  great  issues 
battling  against  each  other.  Men  fight  for  one 


44  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

or  the  other.  Nations  fight  for  one  or  the  other. 
There  have  been  wars  of  conquest  waged  by 
strong  nations  against  weaker  ones,  wars  of 
religion,  wars  of  territorial  aggression,  wars  of 
defense,  wars  of  trade,  wars  of  high  moral  ideals. 
This  is  a  war  where  the  issue  is  sharply  set.  It 
is  a  war  where  democracy  fights  against  au- 
tocracy, where  liberty  fights  against  bondage, 
where  freemen  fight  to  keep  their  freedom 
against  men  who  strive  to  take  it  away  from 
them. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  nations  in  the  world, 
those  nations  which  believe  that  governments 
derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of 
the  governed  and  those  other  nations  which 
believe  that  power  comes  from  God  to  Kings 
to  be  used  over  people  who  have  nothing  to 
say  about  its  use.  The  first  is  a  democracy, 
even  though  it  have  a  monarch  nominally  as  its 
head.  The  other  is  an  autocracy.  And,  since 
this  is  a  war  of  democracy  against  autocracy,  it 
is  really  a  war  of  the  free  people  of  the  world 
against  the  bondsmen  and  their  masters. 


UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR      45 

There  was  a  time  when  all  the  great  nations 
of  the  world  had  Kings.  It  was  part  of  the 
evolution  of  the  social  system.  Nations  need 
leaders,  and  there  were  men  so  strong  that  they 
were  able  to  seize  and  hold  leadership,  keeping 
it  for  their  sons  so  that  the  people  came  to  ac- 
cept one  family  as  its  rulers.  But  in  time  some 
nations  began  to  emerge  from  the  yoke  that 
these  rulers  set  upon  them.  The  people,  who 
had  been  serfs  and  slaves,  began  to  demand 
a  voice  in  the  government.  Kings  and  nobles 
began  to  lose  power  in  these  nations  with  the 
awakening  of  the  people.  The  signing  of  the 
Magna  Charta  in  England  by  King  John 
marked  the  transfer  of  power  from  the  King. 
Bit  by  bit  in  those  nations  tending  toward 
liberal  government  the  shift  of  power  took 
place. 

It  was  not  until  the  last  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  however,  that  the  theory 
of  free  government  flowered  and  bore  fruit. 
Then  the  Thirteen  Colonies  of  Great  Britain, 
situated  along  the  western  Atlantic  seaboard, 


46  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

revolted  against  the  imposition  of  a  tax  that 
the  colonists  considered  unjust,  went  to  war, 
and  won  the  war.  They  established  the  United 
States  of  America,  a  nation  which  has  been 
from  that  day  to  this  a  genuine  democracy,  a 
free  republic  based  absolutely  on  the  doctrine 
that  power  came  from  the  people,  and  that 
government  exists  merely  as  the  steward  of  that 
power. 

It  was  through  the  aid  given  to  the  Colonies 
by  France,  brought  by  Lafayette  and  Rocham- 
beau,  that  the  War  of  the  Revolution  was  won. 
The  French  soldiers,  returning  home  at  its  close, 
took  with  them  reinforcement  of  the  spirit  of 
desire  for  freedom  that  was  already  animating 
France  and  which  in  time  brought  about  the 
beginnings  of  the  French  Revolution,  a  war 
which  changed  France  from  a  monarchy  where 
the  King  said  with  truth  "I  am  the  state"  to 
a  real  democracy. 

The  example  of  the  United  States  of  America 

.inspired   other  nations   of  Europe   toward   the 

ideal  of  a  government  in  which  the  people  should 


UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR      47 

have  a  voice.  Our  republican  institutions  have 
had  a  reflex  upon  English  institutions  so  that 
to-day  Great  Britain,  in  spite  of  having  a 
nominal  King,  is  one  of  the  most  democratic 
governments  in  the  world.  The  King  of  Italy 
holds  his  power  as  a  result  of  a  war  in  which  the 
people  of  Italy  wrested  freedom  from  Austrian 
domination.  And  Russia,  at  the  time  when  it 
went  into  war,  was  moving  toward  a  more 
elastic  form  of  government.  That  it  failed  in 
the  experiment  was  due  to  German  intrigue,  and 
not  to  lack  of  desire  of  the  Russian  people  for 
self-government . 

On  the  other  hand,  the  people  of  the  Central 
Powers,  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary,  have 
accepted — sometimes  with  mutterings  of  revolt, 
but  eventually  with  resignation — the  idea  that 
their  rulers  derived  authority  from  some  divine 
source.  Few  nations  in  modern  times  have 
had  less  voice  in  the  government  of  their  coun- 
try than  the  people  of  Germany.  For,  under 
the  German  constitution,  Germany  is  governed 
by  its  Emperor,  with  its  legislative  power  in 


48  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

two  bodies,  the  Bundesrat  and  the  Reichstag. 
Now,  the  United  States  puts  its  legislative  power 
into  two  bodies,  the  Senate  and  the  House  of 
Representatives.  France  puts  power  into  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  England  into  the  House 
of  Commons  and  the  House  of  Lords.  But 
England  is  shearing  the  power  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  in  our  country  the  Senate  and  the 
House  of  Representatives  are  elected  by  and 
are  directly  responsible  to  the  voters  of  the 
country.  Here,  as  in  France  and  in  England, 
the  vote  is  not  restricted  by  wealth  or  by  class. 
In  Germany  the  vote  is  so  arranged  that  370 
rich  men  have  the  same  voting  power  as  22,324 
poor  men  in  one  district,  Cologne;  while  the 
Bundesrat  is  merely  a  diplomatic  assembly, 
representing  the  kingdoms  of  the  German  Em- 
pire, an  assembly  which  the  King  of  Prussia 
absolutely  dominates,  and  through  which  he 
becomes,  as  Emperor  of  Germany,  absolute 
ruler  of  the  empire.  For  the  Reichstag  has  no 
power  to  make  or  unmake  ministries,  or  to 
control  the  Emperor  in  any  way.  The  Emperor 


UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR      49 

appoints  the  chancellor,  and  the  chancellor  is 
answerable  only  to  him.  So  that  in  the  long 
run,  although  it  has  a  constitutional  form,  the 
government  of  Germany  is  the  Emperor  of 
Germany  and  the  military  group  known  as 
Junkers  with  whom  he  has  surrounded  him- 
self. 

The  Emperor  of  Germany  and  the  Junkers 
of  his  Prussia  forced  the  present  war.  They 
prepared  for  it  during  years  while  the  rest  of 
the  world  was  keeping  peace.  They  justified 
it  to  their  people  on  the  ground  that  Germany 
needed  new  territory,  new  trade,  new  markets. 
Although  she  was  gaining  the  trade  and  markets 
without  war,  Germany's  leader  made  this  their 
excuse  to  their  people,  and  when  they  were 
ready  they  went  to  war  for  the  purpose  of  im- 
posing their  form  of  government  upon  peoples 
who  did  not  want  it,  of  forcing  their  rule  upon 
nations  opposed  to  their  ideas.  Serbia  lay  in 
their  path  of  conquest  into  Asia,  and  so  they 
caused  Austria,  their  tool,  to  make  an  excuse  of 
the  assassination  by  a  Serbian  of  an  Austrian 


50  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

archduke,  and  declare  war  on  the  small  nation. 
Then  Germany  invaded  Belgium,  with  which  it 
was  not  at  war,  to  get  to  France,  against  which 
war  had  been  declared.  Belgium  resisted. 
England  entered  the  conflict.  The  struggle 
was  on. 

Month  after  month  the  aggressions  of  Ger- 
many caused  new  nations  to  break  off  relations 
with  her.  Italy  and  Japan  entered  the  war. 
China,  most  peaceful  of  nations  in  her  rela- 
tions with  the  outside  world,  broke  off  rela- 
tions. One  after  another  of  the  South  American 
republics  were  forced  to  do  the  same.  The 
United  States,  after  a  long  period  of  patient 
endurance  of  German  insults,  attacks  on  our 
commerce,  intrigues  and  plots  in  our  own  coun- 
try, restriction  of  our  maritime  activities  in 
defiance  of  international  law,  was  finally  driven 
to  announcement  of  the  existence  of  a  state  of 
war.  The  lines  were  drawn.  Democracy  was 
making  a  stand  for  its  life  against  autocracy, 
the  freemen  of  the  world  against  the  bonds- 
men. 


UNITED  STATES  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR      51 

It  is  right  and  fitting  that  the  United  States 
of  America  should  take  her  place  in  a  war  which 
is  being  fought  for  those  principles  for  which 
she  has  stood  since  her  coming  into  nation- 
hood. For  more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter 
she  has  been,  like  the  Statue  of  Liberty  in  the 
harbor  of  New  York,  a  symbolic  figure  to  the 
world  beaconing  men  to  freedom.  It  is  in  line 
with  her  history  that  she  should  go  to  Europe 
for  the  same  cause  for  which  she  has  fought 
all  her  wars — defense  of  the  weaker  against  the 
stronger,  the  right  of  people  to  determine  their 
own  governments,  the  right  of  all  to  be  free. 

There  is  a  story  told  of  General  Pershing's 
entrance  into  Paris.  He  was  taken  to  the  tomb 
of  Lafayette.  His  hosts  crowded  about  him, 
waiting  for  his  speech.  But,  like  all  American 
soldiers,  Pershing  is  no  orator.  "Well,  Lafay- 
ette," he  said,  "we're  here!"  That  was  all. 
But  France,  hearing,  understood.  America 
was  there,  to  fight  side  by  side  with  them,  to 
suffer  with  them,  to  die  with  them,  that  the 
cause  of  liberty  for  which  Lafayette  had  fought 


52  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

on  two  continents  might  live.  The  world  war 
had  menaced  the  United  States  in  its  sacred 
institution  of  freedom,  and  the  United  States 
had  met  the  challenge,  and  had  come  to  fight 
for  that  which  is  dearer  than  life — honor,  and 
right,  and  justice. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHAT  THE  GREAT  WAR  REALLY  MEANS 

THE  history  of  the  human  race  has  been 
the  history  of  man's  struggle  toward  freedom. 
Because  certain  nations  have  seen  the  light 
sooner  than  others,  they  have  been  the  object 
of  attack  by  these  others,  primarily  because 
the  rulers  of  the  latter  have  been  shrewd  enough 
to  see  that  revolution  is  contagious.  A  free 
neighbor  threatens  the  existence  of  a  monarch 
who  derives  his  power  from  the  force  with  which 
he  has  surrounded  himself  and  from  the  blind- 
ness of  his  own  people.  A  free  neighbor  is  there- 
fore a  menace  to  autocracy,  and  something  to 
be  crushed. 

When  the  people  of  France,  inspired  by  the 
example  of  the  United  States,  arose  in  revolu- 
tion against  their  monarch,  the  revolution  shook 
the  thrones  of  Europe.  The  King  of  France 
was  closer  in  blood  to  other  royal  families  of 

53 


54  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

Europe  than  he  was  to  the  people  whom  he 
had  governed.  The  Queen  of  France  was  a 
Hapsburg,  of  the  royal  family  of  Austria,  whose 
representatives  were  in  almost  every  royal 
house  of  the  Continent  of  Europe.  The  success 
of  the  French  Revolution  was  the  handwriting 
on  the  wall;  and  every  Belshazzar  on  a  throne 
had  a  Daniel  of  statesmanship  to  tell  him  what 
it  meant. 

Almost  at  once  the  Kings  of  Europe  rallied 
against  France,  because  free  France  threatened 
the  existence  of  the  Kings.  France  fought  val- 
iantly. The  military  establishment  which  she 
had  to  assume  to  protect  her  rights,  however, 
swung  her  out  of  the  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment she  had  set  up,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
who  won  her  wars,  became  her  Emperor.  The 
change,  however,  did  not  swing  back  the  French 
people  into  any  slavish  acceptance  of  royalty. 
They  held,  in  spite  of  Bonaparte's  court,  their 
fundamental  democracy;  and  it  was  a  demo- 
cratic army  which  France  sent  across  Europe. 
Napoleon  himself  said  that  every  private  car- 


WHAT  THE  GREAT  WAR  REALLY  MEANS     55 

ried  a  field-marshal's  baton  in  his  knapsack. 
Every  man  had  a  chance  for  promotion.  Every 
man  had  a  chance  to  better  his  life.  And,  be- 
cause France  remained  fundamentally  demo- 
cratic, the  Kings  battled  against  Bonaparte. 
They  defeated  him,  finally;  but  they  did 
not  defeat  France,  for  its  spirit  remained 
free. 

Germany,  nearest  neighbor  to  France,  had 
never  known  democracy.  Once  part  of  the 
vast  kingdom  known  as  the  Holy  Roman  Em- 
pire, she  had  disintegrated  into  little  states, 
kingdoms,  duchies,  and  archbishoprics,  each 
ruled  by  one-man  power.  Sometimes  a  King, 
stronger  than  the  others,  drew  the  kingdoms 
together  for  purposes  of  warfare  against  other 
countries.  Frederick  the  Great,  King  of  Prussia, 
fought  against  Austria.  With  him  the  power  of 
Prussia  rose.  After  his  death  it  declined  so  that 
Napoleon  found  the  conquest  of  Prussia  easy, 
and  went  about  it  so  thoroughly  that  he  made 
the  French  conquest  a  profound  humiliation  to 
the  Prussians.  Even  his  defeat  at  Waterloo 


56  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

failed  to  pay  the  debt  Prussia  cherished  against 
the  French. 

It  was  in  the  time  of  Napoleon  that  the 
German  people  came  nearer  to  freedom  of  spirit 
than  they  had  been  before  or  have  been  since. 
For  in  fighting  a  foreign  enemy  who  sought 
power  even  as  the  Hohenzollern  ruler  of  Ger- 
many seeks  it  to-day,  the  youth  of  Germany 
glimpsed  the  truth  of  democracy.  With  Napo- 
leon's defeat  they  stood  ready  to  move  forward 
toward  it.  But  again  the  Kings  intervened. 

There  was  formed  in  Europe  at  that  time 
the  Holy  Alliance,  that  same  group  of  Kings 
and  Kingmakers  who  sought  to  restore  to  Spain 
its  revolting  colonies  in  South  America,  and 
who  held  firmly  to  the  idea  of  the  divine  right 
of  Kings.  This  Holy  Alliance  throttled  free 
thought  in  Germany.  By  1848  revolutions  for 
the  right  of  freedom  surged  up  throughout  the 
German  states  and  kingdoms  and  principalities. 
They  were  beaten  down  by  the  ruling  powers, 
one  helping  the  other.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
the  German  emigration  toward  the  United 


WHAT  THE  GREAT  WAR  REALLY  MEANS     57 

States  began,  for  the  leaders  of  the  revolution 
sought  a  land  where  they  could  be  free.  Those 
who  stayed  came  in  time  to  accept  the  system 
which  the  rulers  imposed  upon  them. 

The  putting  down  of  the  revolution  of  1848 
gave  Prussia  increased  power.  She  had  a  dis- 
ciplined standing  army,  and  a  military  estab- 
lishment. In  1862  William  I  became  King. 
He  made  Bismarck  his  prime  minister,  and  the 
march  of  Prussia  toward  world  conquest  began. 

Bismarck  made  the  whole  Prussian  nation 
into  an  army.  Then  he  made  alliance  with 
Austria  to  secure  the  duchy  of  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  from  Denmark.  Then  he  provoked  a 
quarrel  with  Austria  so  that  Prussia  might 
deprive  her  of  all  influence  over  the  other  Ger- 
man states.  He  won  his  object  in  a  six-weeks' 
war  in  1866.  But  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the 
power  he  had  won,  for  democratic  France — 
democratic  for  all  her  acceptance  of  another 
Napoleon  for  her  throne — still  threatened  the 
power  of  Kings  who  claimed  that  their  power 
came  from  God,  and  not  from  their  people. 


58  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

Prussia  waited  its  chance.  When  France 
was  unprepared,  a  quarrel  was  brought  on, 
and  the  blow  struck.  Prussia  took  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  from  her.  Then  the  King  of  Prussia 
was  made  Emperor  of  Germany. 

The  territory  which  Prussia  had  acquired 
for  the  German  Empire,  for  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine are  the  richest  mineral  districts  of  France, 
gave  Germany  opportunity  for  that  industrial 
development  which  has  marked  her  history 
since  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  Germany's 
population  overcrowded  her  territorial  space. 
Germany  grew  rich  and  prosperous.  Germany 
became  highly  efficient  in  mechanical  arts. 
German  trade  reached  out  over  the  world,  but 
found  the  barriers  of  the  establishment  of  other 
nations.  The  German  army  remained  a  great 
machine,  officered  by  Prussian  nobles.  Ger- 
many grew  so  mighty  that  she  grew  to  believe 
that  might  makes  right.  She  had  the  might, 
and  she  made  ready  to  exercise  it. 

First  of  all,  she  needed  trade  routes.  She 
needed  a  way  to  the  sea  more  open  than  the 


WHAT  THE  GREAT  WAR  REALLY  MEANS     59 

Hamburg  harbors.  She  wanted  a  road  to  Asia. 
She  wanted  to  control  the  gateway  to  the  rich 
Orient.  She  wanted  an  empire  that  would 
contain  Austria-Hungary  as  well  as  Germany 
proper.  And  she  set  out  to  win  it  all. 

In  1914  the  situation  was  this:  Francis 
Joseph,  Emperor  of  Austria,  was  an  old  man, 
a  sick  man.  His  empire,  composed  of  scores 
of  nationalities,  held  together  by  a  thin  thread. 
If  he  died,  it  might  disintegrate  into  groups  of 
free  peoples.  Serbia,  its  near  neighbor,  had 
won  independence.  The  Balkan  wars  had 
shifted  power  to  small  states  that  stood  be- 
tween Germany  and  the  Orient.  Russia  was 
disaffected.  A  revolution  might  come  at  any 
time  that  would  dethrone  the  Czar.  Unless  a 
war,  and  a  great  war,  was  started,  many  and 
great  free  nations  would  soon  surround  Ger- 
many, cutting  her  off  from  the  way  to  the  Orient. 
France,  her  hated  neighbor,  flaunted  her  free 
institutions  in  her  face  and  remembered  Alsace 
and  Lorraine.  England  cut 'her  off  from  un- 
restricted rule  of  the  sea.  To  be  sure,  she  was 


60  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

not  eager  to  force  war  with  England,  since  the 
German  navy  had  not  arrived  at  the  point  of 
preparedness  of  the  German  army.  England 
could  wait  until  Germany  had  conquered  the 
rest  of  Europe.  Then,  when  England  was  con- 
quered, too,  Germany  would  punish  the  United 
States  for  our  "international  impertinence"  as 
Bismarck  called  our  policy  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine. It  was  the  time  to  strike.  Germany,  as 
usual  in  the  Bismarckian  policy,  made  the  oc- 
casion. 

Down  in  Bosnia,  a  Balkan  state  which  Aus- 
tria had  seized  and  held  against  the  will  of  its 
people,  an  anarchist  threw  a  bomb  which  killed 
an  Austrian  archduke  in  June,  1914.  For  a 
time  no  action  came  of  the  happening.  Then 
Austria  announced  that  she  had  discovered  that 
the  assassination  was  the  result  of  a  Serbian 
plot,  known  to  the  Serbian  Government,  Bos- 
nia's neighbor  and  the  friend  of  her  freedom. 
Therefore  she  declared  war  on  Serbia.  Ger- 
many gave  her  consent  to  the  ultimatum.  She 
was  taking  her  opportunity. 


WHAT  THE  GREAT  WAR  REALLY  MEANS     61 

Knowing  that  a  war  of  Austria  against 
Serbia  would  open  a  way  for  her  own  progress 
toward  the  East,  Germany,  being  prepared  to 
the  last  gun  and  last  man,  forced  the  issue. 
She  knew  that  Russia  would  rise  against  her, 
but  she  knew,  better  than  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment did,  how  unprepared  Russia  was.  On  the 
first  day  of  August,  1914,  she  declared  war 
against  Russia.  On  the  fourth  day  of  August 
the  Reichstag,  the  people's  legislative  body  of 
Germany,  met  and  for  the  first  time  learned 
officially  of  what  had  been  done.  By  that  time 
the  German  Government  had  put  itself  in  a 
position  of  war  against  Russia,  France,  Great 
Britain,  and  Belgium,  a  fact  which  proves  how 
little  the  German  people  had  to  say  about  the 
making  of  actual  warfare. 

In  utter  contempt  of  a  treaty  which  had 
been  signed  Germany  invaded  Belgium  on  the 
way  to  France.  Belgium  resisted  the  invasion. 
A  Chinese  schoolboy,  writing  of  the  event  in  a 
school  in  western  Canada  months  afterward, 
phrased  the  story  better  than  any  historian 


62  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

has  done.  "Germany,"  he  wrote,  "said  to 
Belgium:  'Let  me  through.'  Belgium  said:  'I 
am  not  a  road.  I  am  a  nation."  And  Bel- 
gium proved  to  the  world  how  strong  a  small 
nation  may  be  in  courage.  For  she  resisted 
Germany  so  well  that  France  had  time  to  gather 
her  forces  for  defense.  The  drive  to  Paris  was 
stopped.  Prussia  had  announced  that  its  armies 
would  be  in  Paris  in  an  almost  incredibly  short 
time. 

In  the  meantime  Germany  made  alliance 
with  the  Sultan  of  Turkey.  The  war  on  the 
eastern  front  began.  Hordes  of  Austrians  and 
Germans  swarmed  over  Poland  into  Russia, 
and  back  again  as  Russia  beat  them  back,  then 
forward  again  as  Russia  collapsed.  In  Egypt, 
in  Palestine,  in  Mesopotamia  war  has  raged. 
Japan  joined.  China  broke  off  relations  with 
Germany.  Japan  holds  troops  at  the  eastern 
end  of  the  Russian-Siberian  railway,  waiting 
for  the  word  of  the  Allies  to  strike  westward. 

In  the  west  the  war  has  remained  almost 
stationary  since  the  initial  sweep  of  the  German 


hordes;  but  eastward  Germany  has  driven  her 
armies  toward  her  goal.  Russia  has  disinte- 
grated, pulled  apart  by  the  insidious  forces  of 
German  intrigue.  Germany  has  the  open  way 
to  the  East.  She  has  the  resources  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  of  Russia,  of  Asia  Minor  at  her  com- 
mand. 

Had  it  not  been  for  Germany's  idea  that 
she  could  conquer  the  world  in  one  war,  an 
idea  supported  by  her  eastward  conquests,  she 
might  be  nearer  to  ultimate  success  than  she 
is  to-day.  For  the  entrance  of  the  United  States 
into  the  war,  provoked  by  German  measures 
of  attack  on  American  commerce,  has  materially 
changed  the  issue.  It  has  put  heart  into  the 
Allies,  as  well  as  opening  up  the  field  of  supplies 
of  men  and  munitions  for  them.  Our  country 
has  barely  begun  to  fight,  for  it  has  taken  a 
year  to  bear  to  France  the  necessary  troops 
and  equipment. 

However  long  the  war  may  be,  it  is  one  that 
must  be  fought  to  the  end.  For,  as  a  river  puri- 
fies itself  as  it  flows,  so  has  the  issue  of  the  war 


64  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

defined  itself  as  it  has  progressed.  In  its  be- 
ginning Germany  strove  to  make  the  world 
believe  that  it  was  a  trade  war  between  Aus- 
tria and  Serbia  which  Russia  had  entered  for 
the  injury  of  Austria  and  which  had  been  forced 
on  Germany  in  Austria's  defense.  Then  she 
claimed  that  she  fought  England  "for  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas."  The  war  against  Belgium 
was  "a  military  necessity,"  the  submarine  war- 
fare against  neutral  nations  "a  retaliatory 
measure  against  blockade."  But  in  the  long 
run  Germany's  war  is  the  war  of  the  military 
caste  of  the  world  against  the  free  peoples,  the 
war  of  government  holding  power  by  force 
against  government  holding  power  by  popular 
vote,  the  war  of  military  establishment  against 
peaceful  ideals;  and  until  it  is  won  by  those 
who  fight  Germany  there  can  be  no  lasting 
peace  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW  THE  WAR  CAME  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES 

THE  great  war,  beginning  in  1914,  brought 
to  most  Americans  no  idea  that  our  country 
would  ever  be  more  than  a  watcher  of  it.  That 
we  ourselves  would  one  day  become  part  of 
it — and  one  of  the  greatest  parts  of  it — was 
something  beyond  the  imagination  of  most 
men.  America  had  lived  apart  from  other  na- 
tions. For,  although  our  government  had  made 
treaties  with  foreign  nations,  and  become  part 
of  The  Hague  Conference,  and  been  drawn  to 
some  extent  into  international  politics,  we  had 
none  of  the  ambitions  which  draw  nations  into 
ordinary  wars.  We  had  no  desire  for  colonies, 
we  had  no  jealousy  of  other  nations,  we  had 
no  fear  of  neighboring  governments.  In  fact, 
Americans  believed  that  wars  were  going  out 
of  fashion,  and  that  western  Europe,  any  more 
than  ourselves,  was  not  likely  to  go  to  war. 

65 


66  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

The  coming  of  the  conflict  was  therefore  a  shock 
to  us,  but  not  one  that  brought  us  to  realize 
that  we  were  likely  to  take  part  in  it. 

When  Germany  invaded  Belgium  with  no 
excuse  other  than  that  progress  through  that 
nation  afforded  the  quickest  way  to  France 
the  people  of  the  United  States  awoke  to  their 
first  knowledge  of  what  militarism  may  mean. 
Although  people  of  German  birth  or  parentage 
in  America  were  inclined  to  accept  Germany's 
attempted  justification  of  military  necessity, 
the  sympathies  of  most  Americans  went  to 
Belgium  and  became  one  of  the  important  fac- 
tors in  determining  the  country's  attitude 
toward  the  war.  For  the  United  States  had 
always  stood  for  principles  of  justice  and  hu- 
manitarianism.  The  stories  of  how  Germany 
treated  the  civilian  population  of  Belgium, 
stories  which  were  verified  by  the  later  reports 
of  such  non-partisan  investigators  as  Brand 
Whitlock,  American  minister  to  Belgium, 
aroused  American  sentiment  against  German 
military  methods. 


c    5 


HOW  THE  WAR  CAME  TO  US  67 

There  were  people  in  the  United  States 
who  believed  that  our  country  should  go  to 
war  in  defense  of  Belgium,  just  as  we  had  gone 
to  war  to  free  Cuba  from  the  dominion  of  Spain 
when  the  rule  of  Spain  on  that  island  became 
cruelly  oppressive.  But  our  government,  be- 
lieving that  the  war  was  not  a  parallel  instance, 
since  it  had  not  yet  violated  those  fundamental 
principles  of  our  national  life  that  had  been 
struck  at  by  Spain,  refused  to  consider  such 
action,  and  the  people  fell  back  into  considera- 
tion of  the  causes  and  progress  of  the  war 
abroad. 

It  began  to  be  clear,  as  German  forces 
crossed  Belgium  and  plunged  into  France,  while 
at  the  same  time  German  forces  swept  east- 
ward, that  Germany  had  evolved  the  definite 
scheme  of  world  conquest  which  her  later  de- 
mands and  movements  have  proven.  The 
American  people,  however,  were  slow  to  believe 
this  intention  of  Germany.  Bit  by  bit  only  our 
country  began  to  see  that  Germany  was  push- 
ing forward  a  gigantic  plan  of  territorial  ag- 


68  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

gression,  and  with  all  that  we  heard  and  some 
that  we  believed,  we  were  slow  to  see  how  this 
plan  could  affect  the  United  States. 

Because  we  had  lived  apart  from  the  rest 
of  the  world  we  would  probably  have  continued 
to  feel  that,  terrible  as  the  war  which  Germany 
had  begun  was,  it  was  not  our  war,  and  that 
all  we  were  expected  to  do  was  to  remain 
genuinely  neutral  and  to  give  such  assistance 
as  the  international  law  permitted  neutral  na- 
tions to  give  the  wounded  and  stricken.  But 
Germany  would  not  allow  us  to  remain  apart. 
The  ruling  class  of  Prussia,  headed  by  the 
Kaiser,  grown  mad  with  power  and  the  desire 
for  more  power,  put  into  operation  methods 
that  forced  us  toward  war. 

Germany's  progress  into  this  war  had,  as 
we  have  seen,  struck  blows  at  those  principles 
for  which  America  had  struggled,  the  principles 
of  individual  freedom,  of  international  peace, 
of  the  freedom  of  the  seas.  For  any  one  of  these 
ideals  the  republic  might  have  rushed  into  war; 
but  it  was  only  when  the  American  people  came 


HOW  THE  WAR  CAME  TO  US  69 

to  know  that  Germany  was  plotting  not  only 
to  overthrow  the  Monroe  Doctrine  but  actually 
against  the  American  Government  here  in  the 
United  States  that  we  were  roused  to  desire 
for  conflict  to  uphold  our  national  honor. 

"It  is  plain  enough  how  we  were  forced 
into  war,"  President  Wilson  declared  in  his  Flag 
Day  Address  of  June  14,  1917.  "The  extraor- 
dinary insults  and  aggressions  of  the  Imperial 
German  Government  left  us  no  self-respecting 
choice  but  to  take  up  arms  in  defense  of  our 
rights  as  a  free  people  and  of  our  honor  as  a 
sovereign  government.  The  military  masters 
of  Germany  denied  us  the  right  to  be  neutral. 
They  filled  our  unsuspecting  communities  with 
vicious  spies  and  conspirators  and  sought  to 
corrupt  the  opinions  of  our  people  in  their  own 
behalf.  When  they  found  that  they  could  not 
do  that,  their  agents  diligently  spread  sedition 
amongst  us  and  sought  to  draw  our  own  citizens 
from  their  allegiance;  and  some  of  those  agents 
were  men  connected  with  the  official  embassy 
of  the  German  Government  in  our  own  capital. 


70  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

:<They  sought  by  violence  to  destroy  our 
industries  and  arrest  our  commerce.  They 
tried  to  incite  Mexico  to  take  up  arms  against 
us  and  to  draw  Japan  into  a  hostile  alliance 
with  her;  and  that,  not  by  indirection,  but  by 
direct  suggestion  from  the  Foreign  Office  in 
Berlin.  They  impudently  denied  us  the  use  of 
the  high  seas  and  repeatedly  executed  their 
threat  that  they  would  send  to  their  death  any 
of  our  people  who  ventured  to  approach  the 
coasts  of  Europe. 

"Many  of  our  own  people  were  corrupted. 
Men  began  to  look  upon  their  own  neighbors 
with  suspicion  and  to  wonder  in  their  hot  re- 
sentment whether  there  was  any  community 
in  which  hostile  intrigue  did  not  lurk.  What 
great  nation  in  such  circumstances  would  not 
have  taken  up  arms?  Much  as  we  desired 
peace,  it  was  denied  us,  and  not  of  our  own 
choice.  The  flag  under  which  we  serve  would 
have  been  dishonored  had  we  withheld  our 
hand." 

The  President  of  the  United  States  stated 


HOW   THE  WAR  CAME  TO  US  71 

America's  case  against  Germany  mildly.  Evi- 
dence of  the  bad  faith  of  the  government  of 
Germany  to  the  government  of  the  United 
States  is  piled  in  the  archives  of  the  State  De- 
partment in  Washington.  The  honest  efforts 
of  our  government  to  establish  honest  rela- 
tions with  them  were  met  by  German  officials 
with  quibbles,  misrepresentations,  counter-ac- 
cusations, and  continuing,  deliberate  delays. 
German  high  officials  kept  us  in  humiliating 
waiting  while  German  official  agents  in  this 
country,  protected  by  the  rules  of  diplomatic 
immunity  from  criminal  prosecution,  used  their 
trust  to  conspire  against  our  internal  peace. 
Agents  of  the  German  Embassy  placed  spies 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  country. 
They  put  their  agents  at  work  in  Japan  and  in 
Latin  America  while  they  were  professing  to 
be  our  friends.  They  bought  newspapers  and 
employed  speakers  for  the  purpose  of  rousing 
distrust  of  us  in  those  countries.  They  incited 
insurrection  in  Cuba,  in  Haiti,  and  in  Santo 
Domingo.  They  did  their  best  to  arouse  against 


72  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

us  the  Danish  West  Indies.  They  spread  sus- 
picion of  us  and  our  motives  in  South  America. 
They  conducted  an  attack  upon  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  such  as  no  other  nation  had  ever  at- 
tempted. 

For  a  time  the  government  of  the  United 
States  tried  to  take  the  view  that  this  intrigue, 
plotting,  spying,  and  insidious  warfare  was  the 
work  of  irresponsible  agents,  not  countenanced 
by  the  Imperial  German  Government;  but 
the  proof  was  too  strong.  The  government 
finally  had  to  request  the  recall  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  ambassador  and  of  the  German 
military  and  naval  attaches,  presenting  proof 
of  their  criminal  violations  of  our  hospitality. 
Their  governments  offered  no  reply  to  us,  issued 
no  reprimands  to  them. 

In  spite  of  all  this  the  temper  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  was  that  we  should  keep  out  of 
war  as  long  as  it  was  possible  to  maintain  our 
national  honor  without  war.  The  President 
even  began  the  preparation  of  a  communication 
to  the  warring  nations,  asking  them  to  define 


HOW  THE  WAR  CAME  TO  US  73 

their  war  aims,  as  this  would  be  a  step  toward 
peace.  Before  this  note  was  completed,  the 
German  Government  sent  out  a  communication, 
asking  the  same  definition.  But  the  German 
Government  issued  this  document  on  the  idea 
that  the  German  armies  had  triumphed,  and 
incorporated  in  it  a  threat  to  neutral  govern- 
ments. From  a  thousand  sources,  official  and 
unofficial,  word  came  to  our  government  that 
unless  the  United  States  used  her  influence  to 
end  the  war  on  the  terms  dictated  by  Germany, 
Germany  and  her  allies  would  consider  them- 
selves free  from  obligation  to  respect  the  rights 
of  neutrals.  The  Kaiser  was  frankly  ordering 
the  neutral  nations  of  the  world  to  force  those 
Powers  which  fought  him  to  accept  the  peace 
he  offered.  If  they  failed  to  do  this,  Germany 
would  resume  her  submarine  warfare  on  neutral 
commerce  with  new  ruthlessness. 

The  President,  continuing  his  own  purpose, 
finished  his  note  to  both  sides,  sending  it  on  the 
18th  of  December,  1916.  Both  sides  replied,  the 
Powers  who  resisted  Germany  declaring  that 


74  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

their  principal  end  in  the  war  was  the  lasting 
restoration  of  peace.  Germany  and  her  associ- 
ates refused  to  state  their  terms,  and  merely 
proposed  a  conference — another  method  of  de- 
lay. The  President,  in  an  address  to  the  Senate 
on  the  22d  of  January,  1917,  outlined  the  terms 
of  the  peace  which  the  United  States  could  hon- 
orably join  in  guaranteeing. 

"No  peace  can  last,"  he  stated,  "or  ought 
to  last,  which  does  not  recognize  and  accept 
the  principle  that  governments  derive  all  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed, 
and  that  no  right  anywhere  exists  to  hand  people 
about  from  sovereignty  to  sovereignty  as  if 
they  were  property.  .  .  . 

"I  am  proposing  government  by  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed;  that  freedom  of  the  seas 
which  in  international  conference  after  con- 
ference representatives  of  the  United  States 
have  urged  with  the  eloquence  of  those  who 
are  the  convinced  disciples  of  liberty;  and 
that  moderation  of  armaments  which  makes  of 
armies  and  navies  a  power  for  order  merely, 


HOW  THE  WAR  CAME  TO  US  75 

not  an  instrument  of  aggression  or  of  selfish 
violence." 

Six  days  earlier,  on  the  16th  of  January,  the 
German  secretary  of  foreign  affairs  had  secretly 
despatched  a  communication  to  the  German 
minister  in  Mexico,  informing  him  that  Ger- 
many intended  to  repudiate  its  pledge  made 
to  the  United  States  to  discontinue  submarine 
warfare  on  neutral  ships,  and  instructing  him 
to  offer  to  the  Mexican  Government  New  Mex- 
ico and  Arizona  if  Mexico  would  join  with  Japan 
in  attacking  the  United  States. 

On  the  last  day  of  January,  1917,  the  Ger- 
man ambassador  to  the  United  States,  Count 
Bernstorff,  brought  to  the  secretary  of  state 
a  note  in  which  Germany  announced  her  pur- 
pose of  intensifying  her  submarine  warfare. 
The  German  chancellor  stated  in  Germany 
that  the  reason  that  this  policy  had  not  been 
put  into  force  earlier  was  simply  because  his 
government  had  not  been  ready  to  act. 

On  the  3d  of  February,  1917,  the  Presi- 
dent announced  to  both  houses  of  Congress 


76  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

the  complete  severance  of  our  relations  with 
Germany.  Count  Bernstorff  went  to  Berlin, 
and  James  W.  Gerard,  American  ambassador 
to  Germany,  was  recalled  to  this  country. 
Count  Bernstorff  had  begged  that  no  irrevocable 
decision  of  war  be  made  until  he  had  the  chance 
to  make  one  final  plea  for  peace  to.  the  Kaiser. 
If  he  made  the  plea,  he  failed.  The  submarine 
warfare  began  again  in  greater  violence.  And 
on  the  twelfth  day  of  March  our  government 
ordered  the  placing  of  armed  guards  on  our 
merchant  ships. 

With  the  Sixty-fourth  Congress  dissolved 
on  the  4th  of  March,  we  had  come  to  the 
door  of  the  greatest  war  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  V 

HOW  THE  UNITED  STATES  WENT  INTO  WAR 

ONE  hundred  and  thirty  years  before  the 
great  war  of  Europe  came  to  the  threshold  of 
the  United  States  a  group  of  wise,  far-sighted 
statesmen  met  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  to 
make  a  constitution  for  the  governing  of  the 
Colonies  whose  independence  had  just  been 
won.  They  desired,  above  all  things,  to  estab- 
lish a  government  which  would  stand  the  test 
of  time  and  remain  a  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people.  For  months 
they  deliberated,  bringing  to  the  meetings  all 
the  wisdom,  all  the  ideals,  all  the  visioning  they 
had  acquired  from  long  study,  and  from  vic- 
torious, righteous  warfare.  Finally  they — the 
fathers  of  our  republic — completed  a  document 
that  has  governed  the  United  States  of  America 
and  become  to  the  world  a  model  of  democratic 
government. 

77 


78  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

In  this  document,  which  was  ratified  by 
the  States  then  existing  and  which  became  the 
law  of  those  States  which  were  admitted  to  the 
nation,  its  makers  set  down  certain  rules  govern- 
ing the  making  of  war. 

The  Constitution  divided  the  government 
into  three  branches:  the  executive,  the  legis- 
lative, and  the  judicial.  In  order  that  no  one 
of  them  might  have  too  much  power,  the  duties 
of  each  were  determined  and  divided.  The 
executive,  of  which  the  President  is  chief,  could 
do  certain  deeds  and  duties.  The  judicial  had 
the  final  determination  of  the  right  of  enacting 
certain  laws,  saying  whether  or  not  later  laws, 
made  by  Congress,  conformed  to  the  original 
Constitution.  But  to  the  legislative,  represented 
by  two  houses  of  Congress,  the  Senate  and  the 
House  of  Representatives,  the  Constitution 
granted  certain  very  clear  powers. 

Among  these  powers  was  the  power  to  de- 
clare war.  In  autocracies  monarchs  declare 
war;  but  in  a  democracy  such  as  ours  it  is  right 
and  just  that  the  power  of  declaring  war  should 


HOW  WE  WENT  INTO  THE  WAR  79 

rest  with  that  body  most  directly  responsive 
to  the  people  of  the  nation.  The  Congress  is 
such  a  body.  The  Constitution  therefore  gave 
to  Congress  the  right  of  war  declaration;  and 
nothing  better  illustrates  the  difference  between 
autocracy  and  democracy  than  the  fact  that 
the  Emperor  of  Germany  had  thrust  his  coun- 
try into  war  three  days  before  the  German 
Reichstag,  which  is  the  limited  popular  assembly 
of  the  empire,  knew  officially  of  its  existence, 
while  the  President  of  the  United  States  had 
to  summon  Congress  into  special  session  for 
consideration  of  the  war  problem. 

On  the  second  day  of  April,  1917,  the  Presi- 
dent went  before  the  Congress  which  he  had 
summoned.  Beneath  the  dome  of  the  white 
Capitol  in  the  city  of  Washington,  while  a  world 
waited  breathlessly  for  the  verdict  of  the  great 
nation,  he  read  his  message  to  the  men  who 
represent  the  people  of  the  United  States.  In 
that  message  he  set  down  the  case  of  the  United 
States  against  Germany.  Only  twice  before 
in  the  history  of  America — at  the  beginning 


80  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

of  the  War  of  the  Revolution  and  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  between  the  States — had 
there  been  so  momentous  an  occasion.  Upon 
the  men  assembled  in  the  Senate  and  the  House 
of  Representatives  depended  the  honor,  the 
future  of  the  nation,  and  the  honor  and  the 
future  of  democracy. 

"It  is  a  war,"  the  President  read  to  them, 
"against  all  nations.  .  .  .  The  challenge  is  to 
all  mankind.  Each  nation  must  decide  for 
itself  how  it  will  meet  it.  The  choice  we  make 
for  ourselves  must  be  made  with  a  moderation 
of  counsel  and  a  tempera teness  of  judgment 
befitting  our  character  and  our  motives  as  a 
nation.  We  must  put  excited  feelings  away. 
Our  motive  will  not  be  revenge  or  the  victorious 
assertion  of  the  physical  might  of  the  nation, 
but  only  the  vindication  of  right,  of  human 
right,  of  which  we  are  only  a  single  champion." 

In  that  spirit  the  Congress  listened.  In 
that  spirit  they  heard  the  voice  of  the  man  who 
was  speaking  not  for  himself  but  for  our  United 
States,  not  for  our  generation  alone  but  for  the 


V        •£;  • 


a  I 


I  ii 


-c 
c 


HOW  WE  WENT  INTO  THE  WAR  81 

generations  who  have  passed  and  the  genera- 
tions who  will  come,  when  he  said: 

"The  world  must  be  made  safe  for  democ- 
racy. Its  peace  must  be  planted  upon  the 
tested  foundations  of  political  liberty.  We 
have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We  desire  no 
conquests,  no  dominion.  We  seek  no  indemni- 
ties for  ourselves,  no  material  compensations 
for  the  sacrifices  we  shall  freely  make.  We 
are  but  one  of  the  champions  of  the  rights  of 
mankind.  We  shall  be  satisfied  when  those 
rights  have  been  made  as  secure  as  the  faith 
and  the  freedom  of  nations  can  make  them." 

With  the  weight  of  the  gravest  responsibility 
an  American  Congress  has  ever  raised  falling 
upon  their  shoulders,  they  gave  heed  as  the 
chief  executive  brought  to  them  the  issue: 

"It  is  a  distressing  and  oppressive  duty, 
gentlemen  of  the  Congress,  which  I  have  per- 
formed in  thus  addressing  you.  There  are,  it 
may  be,  many  months  of  fiery  trial  and  sacrifice 
ahead  of  us.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  lead  this 
great,  peaceful  people  into  war,  into  the  most 


82  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

terrible  and  disastrous  of  all  wars,  civilization 
itself  seeming  to  be  in  the  balance.  But  the 
right  is  more  precious  than  peace,  and  we  shall 
fight  for  the  things  which  wre  have  always  carried 
nearest  our  hearts — for  democracy,  for  the  right 
of  those  who  submit  to  authority  to  have  a 
voice  in  their  own  governments,  for  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  small  nations,  for  a  universal 
dominion  of  right  by  such  a  concert  of  free 
people  as  shall  bring  peace  and  safety  to  all 
nations  and  make  the  world  itself  at  last 
free. 

"To  such  a  task  we  can  dedicate  our  lives 
and  our  fortunes,  everything  that  we  are  and 
everything  that  we  have,  with  the  pride  of  those 
who  know  that  the  day  has  come  when  America 
is  privileged  to  spend  her  blood  and  her  might 
for  the  principles  that  gave  her  birth  and  hap- 
piness, and  the  peace  which  she  has  treasured. 
"God  helping  her,  she  can  do  no  other." 
The  Congress  of  the  United  States  deliber- 
ated, through  three  days  and  three  nights,  while 
the  world  waited,  upon  the  question  of  war. 


HOW  WE  WENT  INTO  THE  WAR  83 

On  the  2d  of  April,  the  very  day  of  the  Presi- 
dent's message,  the  war  declaration  passed  the 
Senate  with  a  vote  of  82  yeas  and  6  nays.  On 
the  5th  of  April,  it  passed  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives with  a  vote  of  373  yeas  and  70 
nays.  America  had  spoken,  and  the  voice  of 
America  thundered  this  message  to  Germany: 

"Whereas  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment has  committed  repeated  acts  of  war  against 
the  Government  and  the  people  of  the  United 
States  of  America:  Therefore  be  it 

"Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  United  States  of  America  in  Con- 
gress assembled,  That  the  state  of  war  between 
the  United  States  and  the  Imperial  German 
Government  which  has  thus  been  thrust  upon 
the  United  States  is  hereby  formally  declared; 
and  that  the  President  be,  and  he  is  hereby, 
authorized  and  directed  to  employ  the  entire 
naval  and  military  forces  of  the  United  States 
and  the  resources  of  the  Government  to  carry 
on  war  against  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment; and  to  bring  the  conflict  to  a  successful 


84  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

termination  all  the  resources  of  the  country 
are  hereby  pledged  by  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States." 

The   United   States   of   America   had   gone 
into  its  greatest  war. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT   THE   UNITED   STATES   IS   DOING   IN 
THE   WAR 

WHEN  a  military  nation  of  the  type  of  Ger- 
many goes  into  war  the  entrance  is  but  a  step 
forward  out  of  the  preparations  which  it  has 
been  making  for  years;  but  when  a  peace- 
loving,  peace-observing  nation  of  the  type  of 
the  United  States  goes  into  war  the  entrance 
is  a  revolution  in  the  thoughts,  habits,  and  in- 
tentions of  the  people. 

The  declaration  by  Congress  of  the  existence 
of  a  state  of  war  with  Germany  found  the  United 
States  with  the  greatest  resources  of  any  nation 
in  the  world  but  without  the  sort  of  military 
machinery  necessary  for  prosecution  of  the 
conflict.  The  readjustment  of  the  nation  from 
ordinary  occupations  into  war-making  occu- 
pations has  been  a  gigantic  task,  and  one  that 
has  been  accomplished  only  through  the  in- 

•       85 


86  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

telligent  patriotism  of  the  citizens  of  the  na- 
tion, co-operating  with  the  government. 

The  first  concern  of  the  nation  was  the  in- 
crease of  our  army  and  navy  to  a  size  commen- 
surate to  the  part  we  were  about  to  take  in  the 
conflict.  Neither  the  army  nor  the  navy  came 
near  to  the  strength  which  the  nation  knew  to 
be  imperative  for  the  winning  of  the  war.  For, 
although  the  exact  part  which  the  United  States 
would  take  in  the  struggle  was  to  be  determined 
later  by  conferences  with  the  war  councils  of 
the  other  nations  fighting  Germany,  it  was 
certain  that  we  would  require  a  vast  army  and 
an  adequate  navy. 

Congress  having  voted  that  the  United 
States  should  undertake  extensive  military 
preparation,  the  duty  of  providing  that  prep- 
aration fell  upon  the  executive  branch  of  our 
government.  It  was  provided  that  the  army 
of  the  United  States  should  consist  of  the  Reg- 
ular Army,  the  National  Guard,  and  the 
National  Army.  The  law  provides  that,  when 
these  armies  are  assembled,  there  shall  be  no 


THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  THE  WAR  87 

difference  between  the  Regular  Army,  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  and  the  National  Army.  Every 
man  in  the  army,  no  matter  in  what  service, 
is  equal  in  dignity,  in  responsibility,  and  in 
opportunity  to  every  other  man  of  the  same 
rank  in  the  army. 

The  first  year  of  the  conflict  has  been  largely 
occupied  with  the  assembling  of  these  armies, 
and  in  the  despatch  of  those  trained  for  battle 
duty  to  France.  To  insure  this  despatch  in 
safety  the  navy  has  been  greatly  increased  in 
size  and  efficiency,  although  it  stands  to  the 
honor  of  America  that  her  navy  proved  itself 
instantly  worthy  of  her  trust. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  war  there  was  a 
rush  of  men  to  enlist  in  the  Regular  Army  and 
in  the  National  Guard,  which  was  to  be  part 
of  the  army  of  the  United  States.  The  govern- 
ment, however,  decided  upon  a  method  of  ser- 
vice, known  as  selective  service  and  sometimes 
called  "the  draft,"  which  would  be  more  dem- 
ocratic and  fair  than  the  enlistment  method,  and 
which  would  supplement  the  other  methods. 


88  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

The  selective-service  law,  passed  by  Congress 
on  the  18th  of  May,  1917,  established  a  class  of 
men  between  the  ages  of  twenty -one  and  thirty- 
one  from  which  the  President  may  draft  soldiers. 
All  men  between  those  ages  were  enrolled  on  the 
5th  of  June,  1917.  The  administration  of  the 
draft  is  in  the  hands  of  the  War  Department 
under  the  supervision  of  the  President.  Every 
voting  district  has  a  local  draft  board,  and  every 
congressional  district  a  board  of  appeal,  which 
decides  contested  cases.  All  men  between  the 
ages  given  are  subject  to  service,  unless  they  are 
exempted  for  reasons  allowed  by  law.  No  ex- 
emptions can  be  bought.  No  substitutions  can 
be  made.  The  richest  man  in  the  country  of 
draft  age  is  as  subject  to  service  as  the  poorest 
man.  Exemptions  are  permitted  those  men  who 
are  supporting  dependants  who  cannot  support 
themselves,  those  men  who  are  working  in  occu- 
pations necessary .  for  the  winning  of  the  war, 
such  as  ship-building  and  the  making  of  muni- 
tions of  war,  and  those  men  who  are  physically 
unfit  for  war  service. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  THE  WAR  89 

In  the  registration  9,659,382  men  enrolled. 
By  a  drawing  system  conducted  publicly  in 
the  Capitol  of  the  United  States  at  Washington 
the  order  by  which  these  men  were  to  go  in 
the  army  was  determined  by  lot.  The  Presi- 
dent issued  instructions  to  the  exemption  boards 
on  the  2d  of  July,  and  the  first  National  Army 
of  687,000  men  was  called  to  service  on  the  5th 
of  September,  1917. 

Following  this  call  every  man  in  the  rest 
of  the  nearly  10,000,000  men  received  a  docu- 
ment, known  as  a  questionnaire,  which  gave  a 
number  of  questions  to  be  answered,  and  which 
he  filled  out.  According  to  his  answers  the  local 
board  determined  to  what  class  he  belongs. 
There  are  five  groups  of  selective  service,  ranged 
according  to  a  man's  obligations  and  his  occupa- 
tion. Single  men  without  dependent  relatives 
head  the  first  class.  Licensed  pilots,  who  are 
so  necessary  to  navigation  as  to  be  almost  in- 
dispensable, end  the  last  class.  No  fairer  system 
of  military  service  was  ever  devised. 

For  the  training  of  this  army  arrangements 


90  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

had  to  be  made.  The  government  set  about 
the  building  of  camps,  called  cantonments,  for 
the  use  of  the  National  Guard  and  the  National 
Army  while  their  various  units  were  being  pre- 
pared for  service  abroad.  Most  of  these  camps 
are  in  the  South  so  that  the  men  may  have  less 
hardship  during  the  winter  season.  Some  of 
the  camps  were  completed  in  September,  1917. 
The  construction  of  every  camp  was  a  great 
engineering  achievement.  Camp  Meade  is  the 
second  largest  city  of  Maryland,  and  every 
camp  is  in  itself  a  great  community.  There  arc 
thirty-three  of  these  camps,  or  cantonments, 
extending  from  Atlantic  to  Pacific  and  from 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Canadian  border  in 
their  locations.  Here  the  men  are  trained  into 
service,  and  cared  for  in  various  ways  while 
they  are  being  trained. 

Training-camps  for  officers  were  also  estab- 
lished where  men  were  taught  the  science  of 
warfare  and  the  leading  of  other  men.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  army,  training-camps  for  the  United 
States  marines,  who  are  in  the  naval  service, 


aS 

z 


THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  THE  WAR  91 

were  established.  Special  branches  of  service, 
such  as  aviation,  had  special  camps. 

On  the  fourth  day  of  July,  1917,  the  news 
came  to  the  United  States  that  the  first  divi- 
sion of  the  American  Expeditionary  Forces, 
under  the  command  of  General  John  Pershing, 
had  landed  in  France.  American  troops  began 
intensive  training  with  French  and  British 
soldiers,  and  when  they  were  judged  ready, 
took  their  places  on  the  battle-lines.  Day  after 
day  the  casualty  lists  have  recorded  the  deaths 
and  injuries  of  American  soldiers  in  the  war. 
Our  country  is  paying  the  price  for  the  liberty  we 
have  enjoyed,  and  which  we  struggle  to  hold. 

Every  day  sees  new  divisions  sailing  east- 
ward on  their  way  to  Europe.  The  shipyards 
of  the  country  are  busy  night  and  day  in  the 
building  of  ships  to  convoy  troops  and  supplies 
to  the  battle-fronts,  and  to  the  countries  of  the 
peoples  who  fight  with  us  against  Germany. 

For  upon  the  United  States  has  fallen  the 
task,  not  only  of  supplying  men  for  fighting  with 
the  men  of  France  and  Great  Britain  on  -the 


92  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

western  front,  but  of  supplying  food,  clothing, 
and  ammunition.  Depleted  by  the  years  of  dev- 
astating warfare,  our  fellow  fighters  look  to  us 
for  sustenance.  And  we  are  not  failing  them. 
One  of  the  sinews  of  war  is  money.  Nations 
must  raise  vast  sums  to  keep  up  armies.  Sol- 
diers must  be  fed  and  clothed,  and  given  guns 
and  bullets  with  which  to  defend  themselves. 
If  they  have  families  at  home,  their  families 
must  be  supported.  The  government  of  the 
United  States  does  all  this  for  the  men  in  its 
army  and  navy.  And  the  people  of  the  United 
States  stand  back  of  the  government  to  pay 
for  these  needs.  Besides  the  government,  cer- 
tain private  enterprises  are  aiding  the  soldiers, 
sailors,  and  all  the  victims  of  war  abroad,  as 
well  as  those  needing  aid  at  home  for  various 
reasons  connected  with  the  change  that  war 
brings.  Only  a  certain  percentage  of  our  pop- 
ulation may  go  overseas  to  fight,  but  to  every 
American  is  given  the  opportunity  of  standing 
back  of  the  lines  and  doing  the  part  asked  of 
him. 


CHAPTER  VII 

REAR-LINE  TRENCHES 

BACK  of  the  firing-lines  of  battle  are  other 
lines  which  must  be  held  by  the  fighting  na- 
tions, if  a  war  is  to  be  won.  These  lines,  which 
may  be  called  the  rear-line  trenches  of  conflict, 
are  the  means  of  supply  by  which  the  armies 
at  the  front  are  fed  and  clothed,  and  given  am- 
munition, and  cared  for  in  every  way  that  will 
make  them  better  soldiers.  It  is  on  these  lines 
that  the  civilian  population  of  a  nation  gives 
help  to  the  fighting  men.  It  is  in  these  trenches 
that  the  men,  and  women,  and  children  of  a 
country  may  do  their  part  for  the  soldiers  and 
sailors  who  have  to  go  into  the  actual  battles. 

Because  the  United  States  is  a  democracy, 
fighting  in  a  great  struggle  for  the  principles 
of  democracy,  it  follows  that  our  country  has 
enlisted  the  service  of  every  American  to  win 
the  war.  There  is  no  one  in  the  nation  who 

93 


94  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

may  not  help,  since  every  one  may  do  some- 
thing to  give  actual,  immediate,  necessary  aid 
to  the  men  at  the  front,  and  those  who  are  on 
their  way  to  the  front. 

This  aid  has  been  given,  and  is  being  given, 
in  many  ways.  Through  food  conservation, 
Liberty  Loans,  War  Thrift  and  Savings  Stamps 
and  Certificates,  the  Red  Cross,  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  the  Young  Men's 
Hebrew  Association,  the  Knights  of  Columbus, 
the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  and 
various  other  organizations  which  are  working 
for  the  welfare  of  the  soldiers,  sailors,  and  ma- 
rines, almost  every  person  in  the  United  States 
old  enough  to  understand  that  the  country  is 
at  war  has  helped  toward  the  winning  of  the 
war. 

Some  of  these  methods,  such  as  food  con- 
servation, and  the  raising  of  money  through 
Liberty  Loans  and  the  sale  of  WTar  Thrift 
Stamps,  have  been  used  directly  by  the  govern- 
ment. Others  have  been  semi-private  enter- 
prises with  governmental  sanction.  All  of  them 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  95 

have  been  for  the  purpose  of  helping  the  men 
who  have  been  doing  the  actual  fighting,  so 
that  every  one  in  the  nation  who  has  done  what 
he  could  for  these  causes  has  been  fighting  his 
country's  battles  in  the  trenches  back  of  the 
front. 

FOOD  CONSERVATION 

Napoleon,  the  one-time  Emperor  of  the 
French  and  the  greatest  general  of  modern  war- 
fare, said  that  "an  army  travelled  on  its  stom- 
ach." He  meant  that  no  army  could  go  faster 
than  its  food-supply.  Although  the  method  of 
warfare  has  changed  since  the  century  ago  when 
he  fought,  the  truth  of  his  statement  remains. 
No  army  can  win  battles  unless  it  is  properly  fed. 

When  the  United  States  went  into  the  great 
war  the  government  of  our  country  knew  that 
a  vast  amount  of  certain  kinds  of  food  must 
be  shipped  abroad  to  feed  those  soldiers  whom 
we  would  send  across  and  those  soldiers  of  the 
nations  on  whose  side  we  were  to  fight  against 
Germany.  France  and  Belgium,  devastated  by 


96  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

the  invading  armies  of  the  Germans,  could 
not  raise  food  enough  for  their  own  popula- 
tions, to  say  nothing  of  the  defending  armies. 
England,  with  her  men  fighting  abroad,  and 
with  only  a  comparatively  small  area  of  farm- 
ing land,  could  not  do  much  more.  Canada 
was  sending  millions  of  bushels  of  wheat  and 
thousands  of  tons  of  other  food-supplies  monthly 
to  the  Allies,  but  the  need  was  infinitely  greater 
than  the  supply.  It  therefore  became  the  first 
duty  of  our  country  to  send  to  those  nations 
which  were  fighting  in  the  same  cause  all  the 
food  which  we  could  possibly  spare,  in  order 
that  their  soldiers,  and  our  soldiers  when  they 
came,  would  be  properly  fed. 

Although  the  United  States  produces  great 
quantities  of  food  products  every  year,  only 
certain  kinds  of  food  could  be  sent  abroad. 
It  was  necessary  to  send  the  kind  of  food  that 
would  take  up  the  least  space  in  shipment  and 
have  the  greatest  nourishment.  The  greatest 
demand  was  for  wheat,  and  even  our  country 
could  not — without  saving  at  home — send  to 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  97 

Europe  as  much  as  was  required.  In  order 
that  the  people  of  the  United  States  might  be 
taught  how  to  save  wheat  and  other  foods  needed 
for  our  troops  and  the  Allies,  the  government 
established  a  food  administration  for  the  double 
purpose  of  taking  over  this  instruction  and  of 
devising  other  methods  of  food  saving.  The 
success  of  both  branches  of  service  has  been 
due  to  the  intelligent  co-operation  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  with  the  officers  of  the  food  ad- 
ministration; but  it  has  been  in  the  actual 
savings  by  individual  Americans  that  the  sum 
of  sacrifice  has  been  attained. 

It  may  not  seem  a  soldier's  duty  to  refrain 
from  eating  white  bread  on  certain  days  desig- 
nated by  the  government.  It  may  not  seem 
a  patriot's  duty  to  keep  from  eating  sugar  or 
pork  on  other  days;  but  it  is  none  the  less  a 
duty  as  certain  as  that  one  which  his  command- 
ing officer  assigns  to  the  soldier  in  the  ranks, 
and  one  which  should  be  as  carefully  followed. 
The  following  of  it  has  enabled  the  United  States 
to  ship  abroad  wheat,  pork,  sugar,  and  other 


98  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

foodstuff  in  quantities  sufficient  to  keep  fed  the 
people  who  are  actually  fighting  the  enemy. 
The  man,  woman,  or  child  who  has  saved  at 
home  the  kind  of  food  that  the  government 
has  needed  to  send  abroad,  and  who  has  used 
the  substitutes,  has  done  a  patriotic  duty  and 
his  share  of  keeping  the  rear-line  trench  where 
he  is  placed. 

FUEL  CONSERVATION 

Coal  is  one  of  the  essential  means  of  making 
war.  Without  coal  ships  cannot  cross  the  seas, 
bearing  soldiers.  Without  coal  the  great  fac- 
tories where  guns  and  bullets,  powder  and 
cannon,  uniforms  and  equipment  are  made 
for  our  army  and  navy  could  not  run.  Because 
of  many  reasons  there  was  during  1917  a  short- 
age of  50,000,000  tons  of  coal.  The  govern- 
ment therefore  appointed  a  fuel  administrator 
for  the  purpose  of  finding  ways  to  make  up 
this  shortage  so  that  ships  would  not  be  de- 
layed nor  factories  stopped  where  munitions 
for  our  soldiers  and  sailors  were  being  made. 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  99 

The  fuel  administrator  ordered  the  shutting 
down  of  the  use  of  electric  lights  where  these 
were  not  absolutely  needed,  and  also,  when  the 
shortage  was  most  acute,  the  shutting  down 
of  all  factories  not  employed  in  munitions- 
making  for  a  certain  period  of  time.  This  was 
why  there  were  so-called  "lightless"  nights  and 
"coalless"  days.  The  people  were  also  asked 
to  save  fuel  in  their  homes  as  much  as  possible. 
The  result  was  a  saving  of  fuel  that  was  used 
for  war  purpose  directly. 

WAR  FINANCE 

In  the  old  days,  when  Kings  hired  men  of 
other  nations  to  help  their  own  armies  fight 
their  wars,  it  used  to  be  said  that  the  victory 
went  to  that  side  which  had  the  most  money. 
Some  wars  where  countries  with  practically 
no  money  fought  against  rich  nations  and  de- 
feated them,  because  of  superior  valor  and 
courage  of  their  men,  proved  that  it  was  not 
money,  but  men,  which  won  wars.  The  fact 
remains,  however,  that  money  is  absolutely 


100  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

necessary  for  any  country  to  carry  a  war  to 
success.  Soldiers  must  be  fed  and  clothed, 
and  given  guns  and  bullets  and  cannon,  as 
well  as  proper  care.  All  this  takes  money. 

A  government  has  two  ways  of  raising 
money.  One  of  these  ways,  the  older  way,  is 
by  taxation.  The  government  says  to  the 
citizen:  "You  have  property  worth  so  much 
money.  We  shall  require  you  to  give  us  a  cer- 
tain percentage  of  that  money.  You  have  an 
income  of  so  many  dollars.  We  shall  take  from 
you  part  of  it,  according  to  your  wealth."  Or 
the  government  may  put  a  tax  on  tea,  or  coffee, 
or  clothes,  or  any  other  article  which  people 
use.  All  this  is  perfectly  right  and  legal  as  a 
means  of  raising  money  for  the  prosecution  of 
a  war  in  which  the  government  must  direct  the 
people,  to  win. 

The  other  method  of  raising  money  by  the 
government  is  the  sale  of  bonds.  Bonds  are 
really  promises  made  by  a  corporation  to  pay 
at  a  certain  stated  time,  with  interest,  the 
amount  which  the  purchaser  gives  for  them. 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  101 

For  instance,  when  a  railroad  company  wants  to 
get  money  enough  to  make  some  necessary  im- 
provements, it  issues  bonds  at  a  certain  rate  of 
interest,  payable  at  a  certain  time.  If  the  im- 
provements help  the  railroad,  and  the  company 
makes  money  by  having  done  this,  the  person 
who  buys  the  bond  usually  finds  that  his  pur- 
chase has  increased  in  value  because  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  interest  payments.  It  is  this 
certainty  of  payment,  both  principal  and  inter- 
est, which  has  always  made  United  States 
bonds  such  good  investments.  It  is  not  hard 
for  a  man  who  has  good  property  to  secure  a 
mortgage  upon  it. 

The  United  States  is  the  richest  country 
in  the  world.  The  government  of  the  United 
States  has  at  its  command  the  greatest  re- 
sources of  any  nation.  Therefore,  the  govern- 
ment could  raise  more  money  than  any  other 
agency. 

When  the  war  came  to  our  country,  the 
government  had  the  choice  of  raising  money 
by  taxation  or  by  the  sale  of  bonds.  In  order 


102  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

to  make  the  task  as  easy  on  the  people  as  pos- 
sible the  government,  through  its  officers,  de- 
cided to  combine  the  systems.  Through  the 
Internal  Revenue  Bureau  of  the  Treasury  of 
the  United  States  the  government  set  about 
the  collection  of  taxes  imposed  by  Congress, 
and  designed  to  raise  money  for  the  winning 
of  the  war.  And  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
announced  the  opening  of  the  first  Liberty 
Loan. 

The  Liberty  Loans  are  really  bond  sales. 
Through  them  the  government  sells  to  the 
people  bonds,  which  are  promises  to  pay  the 
money  which  the  government  borrows.  These 
bonds  are  promises  to  pay  the  purchasers  at 
the  end  of  a  certain  number  of  years  the 
amount  which  they  pay  for  them.  In  the 
meantime  they  pay  semi-annual  interest.  These 
bonds  are  investments.  Buying  them  is  not 
making  a  gift  to  the  government.  It  is,  rather, 
letting  the  government  make  a  gift  to  you. 

In  order  to  have  money  enough  to  purchase 
bonds,  however,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  103 

have  had  to  make  sacrifices  during  the  course 
of  the  Liberty  Loans;  and  it  is  only  when  they 
have  made  sacrifice,  when  they  have  given  up 
clothes  they  wanted,  or  vacations  they  thought 
they  needed,  or  pleasure  they  would  have  sought, 
that  they  are  really  doing  something  for  the 
country.  But  so  many  millions  of  men  and 
women  and  children  have  bought  Liberty  Bonds 
and  are  continuing  to  buy  Liberty  Bonds  that 
their  purchase  has  become  one  of  the  great  pa- 
triotic movements  of  our  country  in  this  war. 

In  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  Robert  Morris, 
of  Philadelphia,  loaned  money  to  General  Wash- 
ington's army.  History  has  made  famous  his 
name  because  he  had  faith  enough  in  his  coun- 
try and  love  enough  for  his  country  to  loan 
money  to  her  in  the  hour  of  her  need.  In  this 
great  war  every  man,  every  woman,  every  boy, 
every  girl  in  the  United  States  has  the  oppor- 
tunity of  becoming  a  Robert  Morris. 

For,  although  the  lowest  denomination  of 
a  Liberty  Bond  is  fifty  dollars,  the  government 
has  devised  a  method  by  which  every  one  who 


104  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

has  any  money  at  all  can  help  in  the  war.  The 
treasury  has  issued  War  Thrift  Stamps  and 
War  Savings  Certificates  so  that  any  one  who 
has  money  at  all — no  matter  how  little — may 
do  his  share.  The  stamps  may  be  bought  al- 
most everywhere  for  twenty-five  cents.  In 
January,  1918,  a  certificate  cost  $4.12.  In 
every  month  which  followed  it  cost  one  cent 
more.  But  it  will  bring  back  to  the  holder  of 
it  in  1923  five  dollars.  The  stamps  may  be 
exchanged  for  certificates,  as  soon  as  the  saver 
has  enough  of  them,  with  the  odd  amount  added, 
to  make  the  purchase. 

Since  every  one  in  the  nation  who  has  twenty- 
five  cents  may  buy  a  Thrift  Stamp,  it  is  almost 
certain  that  every  one  in  the  United  States 
can  help  the  government  win  the  war  by  making 
the  purchase.  And  it  is  by  the  individual  efforts 
that  the  money  will  be  raised,  and  the  war  won. 

THE  RED  CROSS 

From  an  auxiliary  branch  of  a  great  or- 
ganization the  American  Red  Cross  has  become 


•3    5  * 


si 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  105 

one  of  the  great  agencies  of  the  war.  Before 
the  United  States  entered  the  conflict,  the  Amer- 
ican Red  Cross  had  been  the  great  relief  agency 
among  the  peoples  of  the  stricken  districts  of 
western  Europe.  Food,  clothing,  a  new  chance 
at  life  had  been  given  the  stricken.  Back  of 
the  battle-fields  the  soldiers,  wounded  in  the 
struggles,  were  cared  for.  Even  in  Germany 
the  American  Red  Cross  had  made  easier  the 
lot  of  the  prisoners  of  war.  With  our  entrance 
into  the  war  the  organization  became  one  of 
the  great  factors  in  our  country's  means  of 
caring  for  the  welfare  of  our  fighters. 

The  American  Red  Cross,  of  which  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  is  honorary  chairman, 
is  the  means  through  which  volunteer  aid  is 
given  to  the  sick  and  wounded  men  of  the  army 
and  navy,  to  sufferers  in  the  war  zones,  and 
to  the  families  of  men  in  the  service. 

There  are  two  classes  of  Red  Cross  service, 
civilian  and  military.  The  civilian  relief  in- 
cludes the  care  and  education  of  destitute  chil- 
dren in  the  war  zone,  the  care  of  mutilated  sol- 


106  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

diers,  the  care  of  sick  and  wounded  soldiers, 
the  relief  of  the  devastated  districts  of  France 
and  Belgium,  aid  for  prisoners  of  war  and 
civilians  sent  back  from  bondage  in  Germany 
to  France  and  Belgium,  and  the  prevention  of 
tuberculosis.  It  also  includes  care  for  the 
families  of  soldiers  and  sailors  beyond  the  aid 
given  by  the  government.  Military  relief  es- 
tablishes and  maintains  hospitals  for  sick  and 
wounded  soldiers  in  the  American  army  in 
France,  and  canteens,  rest-houses,  recreation- 
huts  for  American  soldiers  and  also  for  the 
soldiers  of  the  other  nations  at  war  with  Ger- 
many. 

In  the  equipment  of  the  hospitals  and  in 
the  other  relief  work  done  by  the  Red  Cross 
a  very  great  number  of  special  articles,  such 
as  bandages,  garments,  and  other  articles  re- 
quiring skill  in  the  making  were  needed.  Al- 
most every  woman  and  child  in  the  United 
States  has  been  at  work  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war  in  making  something  for  the  Red 
Cross,  so  that  this  semi -governmental  activity 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  107 

has  become  one  of  the  most  wide-spread  forces 
in  providing  comforts  and  necessaries  for  our 
army  and  navy,  as  well  as  for  the  relief  of  con- 
ditions in  the  war  zone. 

WELFARE  WORK 

Both  in  the  camps  at  home  and  in  the 
trenches  abroad  the  soldier  needs  something  be- 
sides the  routine  life  provided  for  him  by  the 
government.  In  order  to  give  him  recreation 
and  pleasures,  so  that  his  life  may  be  normal 
even  when  he  is  away  from  home,  several  or- 
ganizations have  .been  at  work  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war.  The  Commission  on  Train- 
ing-Camp Activities,  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  with  its  attendant  Young  Men's 
Hebrew  Association,  the  Knights  of  Columbus, 
and  the  Jewish  Welfare  Board  have  been  among 
the  many  who  have  been  working  to  make  the 
fighting  men  happier.  These  organizations  have 
built  rest-houses  and  recreation-huts  for  the 
men.  They  have  given  entertainments  for 
them.  They  have  supplied  them  with  comforts, 


108  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

and  have  kept  up  a  high  morality  among  them. 
The  United  Service  Clubs  have  also  been  busy 
in  providing  good  lodgings  for  soldiers  and 
sailors  when  they  have  been  out  of  the  camps  on 
leave.  The  Young  Women's  Christian  Associa- 
tion has  also  done  splendid  work  both  for  the 
men  in  the  camps  and  for  their  visiting  relatives. 
In  addition  to  the  large  organizations  smaller 
ones  are  busy  all  over  the  country  in  aiding  the 
soldiers.  Almost  every  town  has  some  group 
of  people  who  are  giving  service  to  the  men  in 
the  camps.  In  every  city  and  town  through 
which  the  troop-trains  have  passed  on  their 
way  from  the  camps  to  the  harbors  where  the 
soldiers  would  be  placed  on  board  the  trans- 
ports, women  have  fixed  food  for  the  men,  and 
children  have  aided  them  in  carrying  this  food 
to  the  stations.  Large  sums  have  been  raised 
to  carry  on  the  recreation  service  in  the  camps, 
both  here  and  in  France,  and  the  response  of 
the  American  people  to  any  request  for  the 
soldiers  and  sailors  has  been  speedy  and  in- 
spiring. 


REAR-LINE  TRENCHES  109 

The  Boy  Scouts  and  the  Girl  Scouts  of  the 
United  States  have  been  noteworthy  in  their 
work  for  our  country.  Three  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  Boy  Scouts  aided  in  the  work 
of  selling  the  bonds  of  the  Third  Liberty  Loan 
and  of  the  sale  of  War  Thrift  Stamps.  The  Girl 
Scouts  have  done  all  sorts  of  clerical  and  special 
work  for  the  same  cause,  as  well  as  for  various 
others.  The  children  of  every  public  school 
and  almost  every  private  school  in  the  United 
States  have  worked  in  some  cause  or  another 
for  the  winning  of  the  war.  With  the  men  and 
women  of  the  country  they  have  earned  their 
place  on  the  patriots'  roll. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  AMERICAN'S  PART 

ENTERING  the  great  war  after  it  had  al- 
ready waged  for  nearly  three  years,  the  United 
States  learned  many  of  the  lessons  that  experi- 
ence had  taught  to  the  Allies,  and  outlined  a 
programme  that  was  designed  to  promote  speed 
and  efficiency.  Every  programme  that  is  de- 
pendent upon  human  action  is,  of  course,  im- 
perfect; but  the  programme  of  our  country  in 
this  war  has,  at  least,  given  to  the  citizens  of 
our  land  opportunity  for  service  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war.  No  man,  woman,  or  child  in 
the  nation  need  be  idle  or  useless.  He  has  the 
chance  now  of  helping  his  country  as  he  has 
had  in  no  other  time  in  her  history. 

Why  should  the  American  help  America? 

There  is,  to  begin  with,  in  the  soul  of  every 
human  being  a  love  of  country  that  should 

come  next  to  a  love  of  God.     Love  of  country 

no 


THE  AMERICAN'S  PART  111 

is  not  only  next  to  love  of  God,  but  is  part  of 
genuine  love  of  God.  No  man  who  loves  his 
God  sincerely  fails  to  love  his  country.  Even 
those  countries  which  have  not  been  kind  or 
just,  or  fair  to  their  peoples,  countries  where 
men  are  not  given  the  chance  for  freedom  or 
opportunity,  have  their  patriots.  But  the 
United  States  of  America,  more  than  any  other 
country  in  the  world,  has  given  to  her  people 
liberty,  justice,  opportunity,  freedom.  It  is, 
therefore,  the  grateful  duty  of  every  American 
to  do  what  he  can  to  keep  his  country  what 
she  has  been. 

For  those  men  who  are  in  the  army  or  navy 
the  duty  is  clear.  They  are  making  the  supreme 
sacrifice  in  standing  ready  to  give  their  lives  in 
the  defense  of  our  nation.  For  those  who  stay 
at  home  the  path  may  not  be  as  plain,  but  it 
is  there,  and  no  one  should  fail  to  find  it  and 
travel  upon  it,  for  it  is  the  road  of  patriotism, 
and  patriotism  is  a  divine  duty. 

The  United  States,  as  we  have  seen,  entered 
the  war  to  uphold  those  principles  of  right  which 


112  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

all  great  Americans,  from  Washington  and 
Patrick  Henry  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  have  cher- 
ished. For  freedom  of  the  seas,  for  the  safe- 
keeping of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  for  the  right 
of  arbitration  in  international  disputes,  for  the 
right  of  small  nations  to  govern  themselves,  for 
the  preservation  of  those  free  institutions  of 
democracy  which  the  autocracy  of  Germany 
strives  to  conquer,  our  nation  took  up  the 
burden  of  conflict.  While  it  is  the  first  war  in 
which  we  have  sent  our  troops  to  foreign  soil, 
it  is  a  war  in  keeping  with  the  basic  principles 
of  our  nationality.  It  is  being  fought  for  the 
same  freedom  for  which  the  thirteen  Colonies 
fought  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  It  is 
being  fought  for  the  same  maritime  right  for 
which  the  War  of  1812  was  fought.  Both  these 
struggles  were,  it  is  true,  against  England,  who 
is  now  our  cobelligerent  in  the  war  against  Ger- 
many. By  our  winning  of  those  wars  the 
United  States  helped  the  people  of  England  to 
see  that  light  for  which  they  are  now  sacrificing 
everything.  There  were  men  in  England,  even 


THE  AMERICAN'S  PART  113 

in  the  times  of  the  War  of  the  Revolution  and 
in  the  War  of  1812,  who  believed  America  right, 
and  who  proclaimed  their  belief  in  the  halls  of 
Westminster.  Their  courage  and  our  success 
set  beacons  on  the  hills  of  history  for  the  light- 
ing of  those  who  followed.  The  same  spirit  that 
inspired  our  nation  in  its  beginnings  is  the  spirit 
that  inspires  not  only  ourselves  but  those  against 
whom  we  fought  until  they,  too,  are  fighting 
for  it  now  on  the  fields  of  Flanders  and  France. 

It  is  a  war  which  is  being  fought  for  the 
same  basic  principles  on  which  the  War  of  the 
States  was  fought  in  the  sixties  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. For  while  the  North  fought  for  the  free- 
dom of  the  slave,  the  South  fought,  not  for  his 
continuation  in  bondage,  but  for  the  rights  of 
the  separate  States.  Both  issues  were  funda- 
mentally right.  The  greater — for  the  freedom 
of  the  individual  is  greater  than  the  constitu- 
tional right  of  a  State — triumphed.  But  the 
spirit  of  both  is  American,  and  part  of  our  reason 
for  entering  this  war. 

Since  it  is  a  war  in  keeping  with  American 


114  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

traditions,  it  is  the  part  of  the  American,  in 
service  or  out  of  it,  to  keep  up  the  standard  of 
our  country  in  it. 

How  shall  he  do  it  ? 

Every  man  sees  his  own  duty  clearest.  But 
there  are  certain  lines  of  life  in  which  this  duty 
is  so  clear  that  it  is  easy  to  mark.  One  of  these 
lines  is  that  of  the  American  of  foreign  birth 
or  parentage,  now  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 
Another  is  that  of  the  families  of  officers  and 
soldiers.  A  third  is  that  of  the  industrial  workers 
of  the  country.  The  men,  women,  and  children 
in  any  one  of  these  zones  have  definite  standards 
to  uphold.  If  they  fail  to  do  so,  they  are  not 
less  traitorous  than  the  sentry  who  falls  asleep 
at  his  post  and  lets  the  enemy  in. 

The  American  of  foreign  birth  or  parentage 
is  a  citizen  of  this  country  because  he  or  his 
parents  saw  that  America  offered  an  oppor- 
tunity which  could  not  be  secured  in  the  old 
country.  He  is  the  recipient  of  favors  of  free- 
dom, liberty,  and  such  wealth  as  he  did  not 
before  enjoy.  His  allegiance  is  doubly  owed. 


THE  AMERICAN'S  PART  115 

It  is  therefore  his  part  to  do  everything  in  his 
power  to  prove  his  gratitude.  It  is  his  part  to 
combat  all  disloyalty,  to  uproot  all  treason,  to 
stand  firm  for  American  principles  at  home  and 
abroad,  to  proclaim  by  word  and  deed  his  loyalty 
to  our  country. 

Because  this  is  a  war  for  democracy  it  is 
the  part  of  every  American  to  maintain  that 
democracy  at  home  and  in  deed  as  well  as  abroad 
and  in  word.  Military  organizations  have  a 
tendency  to  create  distinctions,  unless  the  peo- 
ple of  the  country  keep  close  watch  on  them- 
selves. Military  discipline  must  be  maintained, 
but  any  line  drawn  between  officer  and  private 
must  end  with  discipline  and  not  be  carried 
into  private  life.  The  private  in  the  ranks  is 
as  great  an  American,  if  he  does  his  duty,  as 
the  general  in  command;  and  no  one  knows  it 
better  than  the  general.  It  is  not  in  the  army 
or  navy,  but  in  the  civilian  families  of  soldiers 
and  sailors,  that  the  danger  lies.  Therefore, 
it  is  the  part  of  every  member  of  these  to  bear 
in  mind  constantly  and  continuously  that  every 


116  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

man  in  the  service  is  equal;  that  the  commis- 
sioned officer  is  giving  no  more  than  the  man 
in  the  ranks;  and  that  both  are  giving  up  every- 
thing else  in  life  for  the  one  thing  of  paramount 
importance,  the  winning  of  the  war.  "No  snob- 
bery "  is  as  good  and  as  great  an  American  watch- 
word as  "Give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death." 
For  snobbery  is  the  death  of  liberty  as  surely 
as  the  will  of  a  tyrant.  The  "Junker"  class 
of  Prussia  is  the  officer  class  who  look  down 
upon  all  others,  and  who  have  come  to  believe 
the  world  to  have  been  made  for  their  rule. 
We  are  fighting  "Junkerism"  in  Europe.  It 
is  the  American's  part  to  fight  the  slightest 
trace  of  it  at  home. 

Every  war  has  its  home  heroes  as  well  as 
its  field  heroes.  Since  this  war  is,  more  than 
any  other,  a  war  of  resources,  it  follows  that 
the  part  of  labor  is  more  important  than  it  has 
been  in  any  previous  war.  If  the  working  men 
and  women  of  any  one  of  the  great  warring 
nations  should  refuse  to  continue  at  work,  that 
nation  would  be  defeated  as  surely  as  if  the 


THE  AMERICAN'S  PART  117 

armies  had  laid  down  their  arms  in  the  field. 
American  victory  is  as  dependent  upon  Amer- 
ican labor  as  it  is  upon  American  manhood. 
And  it  is  with  pride  that  it  may  be  said  that 
American  labor  has  been  found  worthy  of  all 
American  traditions. 

The  United  States  has  been  pre-eminently 
the  nation  of  the  working  man.  Its  legislation 
has  continuously  tended  toward  the  better- 
ment of  his  condition.  Nowhere  else  in  the 
world  has  he  enjoyed  the  lot  that  has  been  his 
in  America.  Nowhere  else  has  he  the  voice, 
the  power,  the  future  that  our  nation  accords 
him.  And  upon  him  in  this  war  has  fallen  the 
duty  of  speeding  up  the  war  production  of  the 
country,  a  task  so  important  that  those  men 
of  draft  age  engaged  in  such  occupations  have 
been  exempted  from  military  service  in  order 
that  they  may  continue  at  their  work.  For 
the  making  of  munitions  is  as  necessary  as  the 
firing  of  guns. 

It  has  become  the  duty  of  American  labor  to 
keep  at  the  allotted  tasks.  No  one  must  shirk. 


118  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

No  one  must  fail.  No  one  must  delay.  No 
matter  how  trivial  the  task  may  seem  in  the 
sum  of  the  war  work,  it  may  be  the  one  whose 
lack  of  doing  may  be  the  breach  in  the  wall 
through  which  the  enemy  may  enter. 

"For  the  want  of  a  nail,  the  shoe  was  lost. 
For  the  want  of  a  shoe,  the  horse  was  lost. 
For  the  want  of  a  horse,  the  rider  was  lost. 
For  the  want  of  the  rider,  the  message  was  lost. 
For  the  want  of  the  message,  the  battle  was  lost. 
For  the  loss  of  the  battle,  the  kingdom  was  lost. 
All  for  the  want  of  the  nail  of  a  shoe." 

And  the  maker  of  the  horseshoe  was  one  of 
the  factors  of  his  country's  defeat ! 

The  civilian's  part  in  this  war  has  been  out- 
lined by  the  President  of  the  United  States  in 
his  proclamation  of  the  16th  of  April,  1917: 

'These,  then,  are  the  things  we  must  do 
and  do  well  besides  fighting — the  things  with- 
out which  mere  fighting  would  be  fruitless; 
we  must  supply  abundant  food  for  ourselves, 
our  armies,  and  our  seamen,  not  only,  but  also 
for  a  large  part  of  the  nations  with  whom  we 
have  common  cause,  in  whose  support  and  by 


5     ~ 


Jl  f 


THE  AMERICAN'S  PART  119 

whose  side  we  are  fighting.  We  must  supply 
ships  by  the  hundreds  out  of  our  shipyards  to 
carry  to  the  other  side  of  the  sea,  submarines 
or  no  submarines,  what  will  every  day  be  needed 
there,  and  abundant  materials  out  of  our  fields 
and  our  mines  and  our  factories  with  which 
not  only  to  cloak  and  equip  our  own  forces  on 
land  and  sea,  but  also  to  clothe  and  support 
our  people  for  whom  the  gallant  fellows  under 
arms  can  no  longer  work;  to  help  clothe  and 
equip  the  armies  with  which  we  are  co-operat- 
ing in  Europe  and  to  keep  the  looms  and  manu- 
factories there  in  raw  materials;  coal  to  keep 
the  fires  going  in  the  ships  at  sea  and  in  the 
furnaces  of  hundreds  of  factories  across  the 
sea;  steel  out  of  which  to  make  arms  and  am- 
munition both  here  and  there;  rails  for  worn- 
out  railways  back  of  the  fighting  fronts;  loco- 
motives and  rolling-stock  to  take  the  places  of 
those  every  day  going  to  pieces;  mules,  horses, 
cattle,  for  labor  and  for  military  service;  every- 
thing with  which  the  people  in  England,  France, 
Italy,  and  Russia  have  normally  supplied  them- 


120  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

selves,   but   cannot   now   afford   the  men,   the 
materials,  or  the  machinery  to  make." 

America  is  the  factory  of  the  world.  The 
American  who  stays  at  home  is  the  worker  in 
the  factory,  and  it  is  his  part  to  do  his  work 
so  well  that  the  man  who  fights  overseas  for 
the  same  cause  may  hold  his  hand  in  the  essen- 
tial brotherhood  of  equal  service. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  INDIVIDUAL  FREEDOM 

IN  the  soul  of  every  human  being,  no  matter 
how  clogged  it  be  by  traditions,  lives  the  desire 
for  freedom.  It  is  this  desire,  this  spark  of 
fire,  which  has  peopled  the  continent  of  America. 
For,  long  before  the  colonies  revolted  and  estab- 
lished a  republic  the  great  territory  which  has 
become  the  United  States  beckoned  to  the 
peoples  of  the  Old  World  a  welcome  to  a  land 
which  would  give  them  opportunity  for  the 
freedom  they  sought.  The  whole  history  of 
the  American  colonies  is  a  history  of  the  search 
of  mankind  for-  individual  freedom  in  which  to 
work  out  his  ideals  without  governmental  in- 
terference. Political  refugees,  religious  refugees 
dared  the  dangers  of  the  ocean  to  come  to  the 
new  land  that  they  might  live  and  worship  as 
their  souls  urged  them. 

The  settlement  of  Massachusetts  was  made 
121 


122  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

by  the  Puritans  of  England  who  were  seeking 
a  refuge  from  the  oppression  they  had  suffered 
in  England  on  account  of  their  religious  beliefs 
and  practices.  They  braved  the  stormy  northern 
Atlantic  to  come  to  the  wilderness.  They  braved 
the  Indians  to  stay.  They  established  their 
homes,  their  schools,  their  meeting-houses,  their 
government,  and  dwelt  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  their  consciences  in  that  freedom  which 
they  had  desired. 

No  less  for  freedom  did  William  Penn  and 
his  colony  of  Quakers  come  to  the  western  hemi- 
sphere. They  sought  a  place  where  they  would 
be  given  a  chance  to  worship  God  according 
to  their  belief.  A  peaceful  sect,  they  sought 
peace,  and  they  brought  into  the  new  country 
standards  of  living  that  set  their  impress  upon 
the  infant  nation.  Liberal  to  others  as  they 
desired  liberality  for  themselves,  they  were 
destined  to  sow  seeds  of  thought  that  were  to 
be  harvested  in  the  effects  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  republic,  when  it  was  formulated. 

The  Huguenots  in  the  Carolinas,  fleeing  relig- 


INDIVIDUAL  FREEDOM  123 

ious  persecution,  found  haven.  Lord  Baltimore 
established  the  Maryland  colony  of  English 
Catholics  who  could  not  practise  their  religion 
in  the  old  country.  And  where  the  motive 
for  the  establishment  of  the  colony  was  not  in 
itself  purely  a  question  of  finding  a  place  of 
religious  freedom,  the  interrelationship  of  the 
colonies  became  so  close  that  in  time  the  spirit 
of  religious  freedom  became  warp  of  the  fabric 
of  the  country  that  was  to  be  the  American 
nation. 

Political  freedom  was  promoted,  in  the  be- 
ginning, by  the  distance  of  the  colonies  from 
Europe.  France,  Spain,  and  England  were 
too  far  away,  and  ocean  travel  too  hazardous, 
to  make  the  bond  between  the  mother  coun- 
tries and  the  colonies  tight.  Men  and  women 
who  had  been  venturesome  enough  to  cross 
the  seas  were  not  of  the  sort  who  would  be  held 
for  long  by  mere  traditions  of  allegiance  to 
old  lands.  Little  by  little  the  people  of  the 
colonies  gained  larger  measures  of  political 
freedom  until  the  time  arrived  when  the  un- 


124  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

just  tax  imposed  by  England  aroused  them 
to  revolt.  The  Boston  Tea  Party  expressed 
the  spirit  of  'America.  The  Declaration  of 
Independence  voiced  America's  aspiration  and 
America's  intention.  The  War  of  the  Revolu- 
tion settled  the  right  of  Americans  to  their  own 
government.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  guaranteed  to  Americans  their  rights  to 
the  enjoyment  of  that  freedom  which  had  been 
the  mainspring  of  the  foundation  of  the  nation. 
Gradually  the  fact  that  this  was  a  country 
where  men  could  have  a  share  in  the  govern- 
ment, could  speak  their  minds,  could  worship 
God  in  their  own  way,  could  work  out  their 
ideals  and  ambitions  without  governmental 
interference  as  long  as  these  in  no  way  con- 
flicted with  the  interests  of  law  and  order,  went 
over  the  earth.  It  found  its  way  into  those 
countries  of  Europe  where  men  were  eager  for 
its  coming.  The  English,  after  the  War  of  1812, 
when  the  United  States  definitely  established 
our  standing  as  a  nation,  were  among  the  first 
to  come  as  settlers.  And  from  other  western 


INDIVIDUAL  FREEDOM  125 

countries  of  Europe  came  other  settlers,  led 
by  the  knowledge  that  here  could  they  enjoy 
individual  freedom. 

To  America,  as  to  the  Promised  Land,  flocked 
the  Irish.  Restless  under  the  English  yoke, 
denied  economic,  political,  religious,  and  edu- 
cational liberty  by  a  government  of  an  alien 
neighbor,  the  Irish  people  turned  westward. 
The  famine  and  the  political  revolution  of  1848 
sent  them  out  from  Ireland  by  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands. To  our  land  they  brought  a  passionate 
yearning  for  freedom  and  a  passionate  gratitude 
to  the  country  which  opened  it  to  them;  and 
because  they  were,  as  a  people,  gifted  with  the 
power  of  expressing  their  emotions,  they  spread 
the  fame  of  the  United  States  broadcast  over 
the  world  as  a  haven  for  those  who  sought  lib- 
erty. 

After  them  came  the  Germans,  led  by  the 
political  refugees  of  that  country  who  had  in- 
curred the  enmity  of  Prussia  in  the  Revolution 
of  1848,  which  had  striven  to  bring  some  measure 
of  freedom  to  the  German  people.  Denied  it  at 


126  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

home,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Germans  came 
to  America  to  find  liberty  in  their  individual 
lives,  to  find  opportunity.  It  is  these  Germans 
and  their  descendants  who,  understanding  what 
the  Prussian  yoke  means,  have  become  among 
the  best  of  our  American  citizens.  Knowing 
what  they  escaped,  they  know  what  America 
fights  against  now. 

The  third  great  movement  of  a  people  to 
the  United  States  has  been  the  westward  coming 
of  the  Jews.  In  this  country,  as  in  no  other, 
they  possessed  full  religious  freedom,  and  to  this 
country  they  have  flocked  from  every  land  of 
Europe  where  they  had  huddled,  unwelcome,  for 
centuries.  Here  they  have  found  no  opposition 
to  their  faith.  Here  they  have  had  full  chance 
to  worship  as  they  would.  For  the  first  time 
in  thousands  of  years  the  Jew  could  build  his 
temple  unhindered.  For  the  first  time  since 
the  Roman  had  gone  into  Palestine  the  Jew 
was  a  citizen  of  the  land  in  which  he  dwelt. 

Then  came  the  peoples  of  eastern  Europe, 
peoples  of  the  vast  empire  that  is  called  Austria- 


INDIVIDUAL  FREEDOM  127 

Hungary  for  lack  of  a  better  name.  Ruled  by 
a  man  not  of  their  race,  a  man  of  one  of  the 
oldest,  most  corrupt,  and  autocratic  of  the  reign- 
ing families  of  Europe,  they  were  struggling 
upward  toward  freedom  when  the  growing  com- 
mercial dominion  of  the  United  States  took  the 
word  to  them  of  our  nation's  beacon.  To  us 
they  have  literally  surged.  Among  us  they 
have  found  the  freedom  denied  their  peoples 
at  home. 

Another  people  sought  the  United  States 
to  attain  freedom.  The  Poles,  oppressed  on 
one  side  by  Germany,  on  another  by  Austria, 
and  on  the  third  by  the  autocratic  government 
of  Russia  under  the  Czars,  heard  the  tale  of 
the  land  of  liberty,  and  set  out  for  our  shores 
in  great  hordes.  So  many  have  they  come  that 
Chicago  is  the  second  largest  Polish  city  in  the 
world,  having  almost  as  many  Poles  as  Warsaw; 
and  Milwaukee,  Buffalo,  and  other  American 
cities  attest  the  surging  of  the  Pole  toward  a 
land  of  liberty. 

In  fact,  there  has  been  no  country  in  Eu- 


128  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

rope  where  people  were  dissatisfied  with  their 
government  that  has  not  sent  its  people  to  the 
United  States.  That  France  has  sent  the  least 
number  in  proportion  to  her  population  has 
been  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  the  people  of 
France  had  worked  out  for  themselves  a  genuine 
democracy  that  satisfied  the  souls  of  her  sons 
and  daughters. 

Through  the  hundred  and  forty-one  years 
that  had  elapsed  between  the  calling  of  the 
Continental  Congress  and  the  entrance  of  the 
United  States  into  war  against  Germany  this 
nation  had  been  solidifying  that  right  of  indi- 
vidual freedom  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution. 
The  war  between  North  and  South  had  been 
fought  in  defense  of  the  right  of  a  human  being 
to  freedom  as  against  the  right  of  a  State  to 
separate  itself  from  the  national  government. 
The  latter  issue  was  lost,  not  because  it  was 
wrong,  but  because  it  was  not  as  vitally  impor- 
tant in  the  history  of  civilization  as  the  former. 
For  that  men  and  women  and  children  should 
be  held  in  bondage  violated  the  spirit  of  America; 


An  immigrant  family  qualified  to  enter  the  United  States 

There  has  been  no  country  in  Europe  where  people  were  dissatisfied  with  their  government 
that  has  not  sent  its  people  to  the  United  States 


INDIVIDUAL  FREEDOM  129 

and  the  bondage  had  to  be  broken.  "No  gov- 
ernment," as  Abraham  Lincoln  said,  "can  exist 
half-slave  and  half -free." 

Some  one  has  called  America  the  melting- 
pot  of  the  nations.  If  it  is,  the  fire  that  fuses 
the  nationalities  which  have  come  to  our  land 
has  been  the  fire  of  freedom. 

That  is  why  America's  entrance  into  the 
world  war  is  so  much  more  vitally  significant 
than  a  mere  attack  in  defense  of  certain  viola- 
tions of  international  law.  It  is  a  defense  of 
the  principle  of  individual  freedom.  Were 
the  United  States  not  to  oppose  a  force  that 
threatened  the  freedom  of  the  world,  we  would 
not  be  worthy  of  the  trust  which  the  peoples 
of  other  lands  have  reposed  in  us.  The  Irish, 
the  Germans,  the  Jews,  the  Slavs  who  came  to 
America  would  eventually  have  come  in  vain. 
For  Germany  threatens  the  liberty  of  all  peoples, 
if  she  wins  to  victory  in  Europe.  Germany 
stands  for  all  those  ideas  of  government  from 
which  these  peoples  fled.  Germany  stands  for 
the  suppression  of  the  individual  as  a  political 


130  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

unit.  Germany  stands  for  might.  Against  all 
that  we  have  always  fought.  If  we  failed  to 
fight  now,  we  would  be  but  deferring  the  issue. 
And  so  to-day  the  United  States  sends  our  sol- 
diers to  France  and  our  sailors  out  on  the  seas 
in  defense  of  that  right  of  mankind  which  is 
God's  gift,  no  matter  how  men  have  tried  to 
take  it  from  him,  the  right  of  the  freedom  of 
the  individual  to  live  his  life  as  he  sees  best, 
according  only  to  the  dictates  of  order,  of  moral 
integrity,  of  justice,  and  of  righteousness. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  INTERNATIONAL  PEACE 

INTERNATIONAL,  lasting  peace  is  the  third 
great  ideal  sought  by  the  Republic  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  it  is  for  the  enforcement 
of  that  kind  of  peace  that  the  United  States 
is  fighting.  For,  unless  such  peace  is  assured 
by  a  decisive  victory,  the  menace  of  German 
imperialism  will  so  overshadow  the  world  that 
all  civilization  will  be  flung  back  into  one  long 
effort  to  keep  armed  to  repel  the  invader. 

Although  other  nations  have  struggled 
toward  a  standard  of  international  and  per- 
manent peace,  the  United  States  was  one  of 
the  first  great  nations  to  put  the  theory  into 
practice.  One  of  the  first  instances  of  this  prac- 
tice came  at  the  close  of  the  war  between  the 
States,  when  the  question  of  the  Alabama 
Claims  arose. 

During  the  war  the  Confederate  States  had 

131 


132  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

caused  to  be  built  in  English  ports,  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  British  Government,  cruisers 
to  damage  Federal  commerce  on  the  high  seas. 
The  cruiser  Alabama  was  most  active  of  these, 
and  from  its  prominence  gave  name  to  the  claim 
which  the  United  States  brought  against  Great 
Britain  for  the  offense  against  international 
law,  particularly  since  the  independence  of  the 
Confederate  States  had  not  been  recognized. 
Great  Britain  had  paid  no  attention  to  Amer- 
ican remonstrance  during  the  war,  but  at  its 
close  requested  settlement  of  the  difficulty. 

The  United  States  was  equipped  for  war, 
with  a  victorious  army  at  command,  and  with 
a  record  of  two  victorious  wars  over  England. 
It  was  a  chance  to  launch  another,  had  our 
nation  been  inclined  toward  militarism.  In- 
stead, our  country  did  its  part  in  appointing 
members  of  a  joint  high  commission,  of  five 
British  and  five  American  statesmen,  who  met 
in  Washington  in  1871  and  adjusted  the  dif- 
ficulty. These  commissioners  made  a  treaty, 
known  as  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  which 


INTERNATIONAL  PEACE  133 

it  was  agreed  that  the  claims  of  either  nation 
against  the  other  should  be  submitted  to  a 
board  of  arbitration  to  be  appointed  by  friendly 
nations.  In  1872  this  board  met  at  Geneva, 
Switzerland,  and  decided  the  claims  in  favor  of 
the  United  States.  Great  Britain  paid  fifteen 
million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the 
damage  done  by  the  cruisers  built  in  her  ports; 
but  even  more  important  was  the  precedent 
established  by  two  great  nations. 

Through  a  period  in  which  the  world  was 
singularly  free  from  great  wars  the  peace  ideal 
grew  among  those  countries  where  the  demo- 
cratic form  of  government  was  progressing. 
The  other  nations,  striving  to  maintain  that 
elusive  standard  of  political  and  trade  domina- 
tion known  as  the  balance  of  power,  juggled 
with  the  peace  idea,  but  from  a  different  point 
of  view.  And  it  was,  strangely  enough,  the 
Czar  of  Russia  who  proposed  the  establishment 
of  an  international  court  for  the  settling  of  in- 
ternational disputes.  His  idea  and  that  of  the 
nations  who  accepted  the  plan  was  to  keep 


134  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

peace  by  a  settlement  of  the  causes  of  war,  and 
also  to  reduce  the  military  and  naval  armaments 
of  the  great  Powers.  He  also  brought  forward 
the  idea  that,  if  war  should  come,  the  conditions 
of  warfare  should  be  made  less  terrible  for  the 
men  who  were  righting.  He  invited  the  dele- 
gates of  the  nations  of  the  world  to  a  conference 
at  The  Hague,  in  the  Netherlands,  in  May, 
1899. 

The  first  conference  promoted — to  all  ap- 
pearances— a  general  good  feeling,  but  did  not 
formulate  actual  rules.  The  second,  called  by 
the  Czar  in  1907,  at  the  request  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  and  extending  from 
June  to  October  of  that  year,  promulgated 
certain  rules  that  were  regarded  until  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  by  Germany  in  1914  as  those 
which  would  hold  all  civilized  nations. 

The  articles  of  this  conference,  known  as 
The  Hague  Conventions,  provided  for: 

I. — The  pacific  settling  of  international  dis- 
putes; 

II. — The  recovery  of  debts  contracted; 


INTERNATIONAL  PEACE  135 

III. — Rules  for  the  opening  of  hostilities; 

IV. — Laws  and  customs  of  war  on  land; 

V. — Rights  and  duties  of  neutral  states  and 
individuals  in  warfare  on  land; 

VI. — Treatment  of  enemy's  merchant  ships 
at  the  opening  of  hostilities; 

VII. — Transformation  of  merchant  ships  into 
war  vessels; 

VIII. — Placing  of  submarine  mines; 

IX. — Bombardment  of  undefended  towns  by 
naval  forces; 

X. — Adoption  of  humane  standards  author- 
ized by  the  Geneva  Convention  to  maritime 
warfare ; 

XI. — Restrictions  on  right  of  capture  in 
maritime  war; 

XII. — Establishment  of  an  international 
prize  court; 

XIII. — Rights  and  duties  of  neutral  states 
in  maritime  war. 

In  addition  to  the  adoption  of  these  thirteen 
articles,  which  were  designed  to  keep  peace  or 
to  make  war  less  terrible,  if  it  came,  the  con- 


136  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

ference  established  a  permanent  court  of  arbi- 
tration which  has  had  its  place  at  The  Hague, 
and  which  is  known  as  The  Hague  Tribunal. 
This  court  is  really  a  number  of  judges  from 
whom  some  are  selected  to  try  cases  of  inter- 
national dispute.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
first  case  laid  before  The  Hague  Tribunal  for 
settlement  was  the  Pius  Fund  matter  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico.  The  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  took  the  dispute  to 
The  Hague,  the  first  time  in  history  when  a 
great  nation  had  appealed  to  an  international 
court  for  settlement  of  a  claim  against  a  small 
nation. 

Since  The  Hague  Conference  the  United 
States  has  concluded  about  thirty  peace  treaties 
with  as  many  nations.  They  are  all  modelled 
on  one  general  idea  which  is  expressed  in  the 
opening  article  of  each  in  this  way: 

'The  high  contracting  parties  agree  that 
all  disputes  between  them,  of  every  nature 
whatsoever,  shall,  when  diplomatic  methods 
of  adjustment  have  failed,  be  referred  for  in- 


INTERNATIONAL  PEACE  137 

vestigation  and  report  to  a  permanent  inter- 
national commission  to  be  constituted"  Cby  the 
contracting  parties)  "...  and  agree  not  to  de- 
clare war  nor  to  begin  hostilities  during  such 
investigation  and  before  the  report  be  sub- 
mitted." 

Thirty-five  nations  had  accepted  this  plan 
"in  principle"  before  Germany  flung  war  upon 
the  world,  and  thirty  treaties  had  been  signed. 
France,  Russia,  Great  Britain,  and  Italy  had 
signed  the  treaties.  Germany  professed  ap- 
proval of  the  plan,  but  avoided  all  definite  ar- 
rangements, her  attitude  apparently  growing 
out  of  her  dislike  of  arbitration. 

This  opposition  to  arbitration  on  Germany's 
part  was  due  to  the  fact  that  for  many  years 
she  was  actually  preparing  for  war,  and  be- 
lieved that  her  best  chance  of  winning  it  was 
in  the  unpreparedness  of  the  nations  against 
which  she  intended  to  wage  it.  The  utterances 
of  her  statesmen,  philosophers,  and  editors  re- 
vealed the  German  official  attitude  of  mind. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  Germany  de- 


138  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

sired  to  keep  the  world  lulled  in  a  false  security 
until  she  had  made  ready  to  strike  the  blow 
against  world  pe&ce.  Nothing  else  explains 
her  refusal  to  bind  herself  with  the  terms  that 
other  nations  accepted  in  the  hope  that  wars 
were  becoming  things  of  the  past. 

Just  before  the  United  States  was  forced 
into  the  breaking  off  of  diplomatic  relations 
with  Germany  the  President  of  the  country- 
went  before  the  Senate  to  set  forth  the  prin- 
ciples which  should  govern  our  nation  in  the 
making  of  any  peace  with  which  we  would  as- 
sociate ourselves.  The  principles  which  he  set 
forth  were: 

I. — An  equality  of  rights  between  nations, 
to  be  based  on  justice  and  not  on  the  old  prin- 
ciple of  balance  of  power; 

II. — Recognition  of  the  principle  that  gov- 
ernments derive  their  just  powers  from  the 
consent  of  the  governed; 

III. — The  right  of  all  great  peoples  to  have 
a  direct  outlet  to  the  sea,  either  by  territorial 
acquisition  or  by  neutralization; 


INTERNATIONAL  PEACE  139 

IV. — The  freedom  of  the  seas; 

V. — The  limitations  of  armaments  on  land 
and  sea; 

VI. — Refusal  to  permit  any  nation  to  ex- 
tend its  policy  over  any  other  nation  or  people; 

VII. — A  concert  of  nations  to  guarantee 
peace  and  the  rights  of  all  nations,  no  entan- 
gling alliances  creating  a  competition  for  power, 
but  a  league  for  the  enforcement  of  interna- 
tional peace. 

"These  are  American  principles,  American 
policies,"  the  President  stated.  "They  are  also 
the  principles  of  forward-looking  men  and 
women  everywhere,  of  every  modern  nation, 
and  of  every  enlightened  community." 

To  the  very  last,  until  the  action  of  Germany 
in  restricting  the  freedom  of  the  seas  for  which 
the  United  States  had  fought  and  won  a  war  in 
days  when  she  was  ill-prepared  for  any  conflict, 
our  country  had  stood  out  for  peace.  Only 
when  our  vital  rights  were  threatened,  our  vital 
principles  violated,  did  war  come.  And,  when 
it  came  the  United  States  entered  into  the 


140  MY  COUNTRY'S  PART 

conflict,  not  in  hot  passion,  but  with  the  high 
purpose  of  establishing  a  real  peace  that  cannot 
be  broken  by  any  one  vandal  nation. 

The  kind  of  peace  which  is  the  ideal  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  one  toward  which  we 
are  now  fighting,  is  not  to  be  the  sort  which 
may  be  patched  up  over  a  council-table  for  a 
brief  space.  There  is  only  one  way  of  curing 
a  cancer  of  the  human  body.  It  must  be  cut 
out.  And  so  it  is  with  the  world.  The  only 
way  to  cure  the  world  of  war  is  to  cut  out  the 
cancer  of  militarism.  The  only  way  to  cut  it 
out  is  to  defeat  the  armies  of  militarism. 

The  United  States  and  the  Allies  are  not 
fighting  to  impose  on  Germany  and  her  fellow 
fighters  any  particular  form  of  government; 
but  they  are  fighting  to  defeat  that  form  of 
government  which  has  precipitated  the  war, 
the  so-called  Junker  policy  of  the  German  Em- 
pire. The  Junker,  who  is  a  member  of  the  Prus- 
sian nobility  and  a  man  devoted  to  militarism, 
has  been  the  instrument  of  war,  forcing  it  on 
the  world  that  Germany,  which  for  him  means 


INTERNATIONAL  PEACE  141 

only  a  certain  small  class  of  rulers  in  Prussia 
headed  by  the  Kaiser,  shall  be  rich  and  power- 
ful over  all  the  earth.  It  is  to  end  his  reign 
upon  earth  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
are  dying  on  the  fields  of  France  and  Flanders. 
It  is  to  end  that  policy  of  Germany  which  aims 
to  keep  men  always  at  war  that  we  are  warring. 
For,  if  Germany  is  not  totally  defeated,  every 
country  in  the  world  will  have  to  build  up  a 
military  machine  of  the  same  kind  as  Germany's 
in  order  to  be  ready  to  fight  her  when  she  makes 
up  her  mind  to  invade  their  territories;  and 
no  one  will  know  when  she  might  do  that.  The 
policy  of  Germany  will  threaten  every  democ- 
racy in  the  world;  for  democracies  cannot 
exist  while  military  establishments  continue. 
Nothing  but  a  total,  annihilating  defeat  of 
Germany  in  this  war  will  make  the  world  "safe 
for  democracy"  and  sure  for  peace. 

When  the  war  is  won  the  United  States 
will,  it  is  sure,  insist  upon  a  just  peace  that 
will  insure  these  ideals,  a  peace  that  will  make 
impossible  another  such  outrage  as  the  inva- 


142  MY   COUNTRY'S  PART 

sion  of  Belgium,  another  Lusitania  outrage,  an- 
other defiance  of  all  civilized  standards,  a  peace 
that  will  remove  militarism,  make  free  the  seas, 
and  give  to  the  individual  that  freedom  that 
has  made  the  United  States  the  haven  of  the 
whole  world. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  062  308     2 


